THE 

Development  of  the  Doctrine 
of  Infant  Salvation. 


BY 


BENJAMIN  B.  WARFIELD,  D.D. 


I 


tibxaxy  of  1:he  <fcheoic0ical  gminaxy 

PRINCETON  •  NEW  JERSEY 


From  the  library  of 
Benjamin  Breckinridge  Warfield,D,D 

BT  758  .W37  1891  copy  1 
War fie Id,  Benjamin 

Breckinridge,  1851-1921. 
The  development  of  the 

rJnrfrinp    nf     infant 


THE 

DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  DOCTRINE 

OF  INFANT  SALVATION. 


BY 

/ 

BENJAMIN    B.    WARFIELD, 

Professor  in  Princeton  Seminary. 


NEW   YORK : 
THE   CHRISTIAN    LITERATURE   CO. 

1891. 


Copyright,  1891,  by 

THE  CHRISTIAN  LITERATURE   CO., 

New  York. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


Page. 

I.  The  Patristic  Doctrine,     ...     5 

Infants  need  salvation,  p.  6  ;  Bap- 
tism necessary  to  salvation,  p.  6  ; 
Augustine,  p.  7. 

II.  The  Medieval  Mitigation,     .     9 

The  inherited  doctrine,  p.  9  ; 
Scholastic  doctrine  of  poena 
clamni,  p.  10  ;  Attempt  to  apply 
baptism  of  intention,  p.  11  ;  Wy- 
cliffe,  p.  13. 

III.  The  Teaching  of  the  Church 

of  Home, 13 

Four  opinions,  p.  13  ;  Tridentme 
doctrine,  p.  14  ;  Attempt  to  ap- 
ply intention  rejected,  p.  IT  ; 
Modern  Pelagianizing  views,  p. 
19. 

IV.  The  Lutheran  Doctrine,  .     .  22 

Protestant  doctrine  of  the 
Church,  p.  23  ;  Doctrine  of  Augs- 
burg Confession,  p.  24 ;  Bap- 
tism of  intention  recognized,  p. 
24  ;  Gerhard's  teaching,  p.  2ti  ; 
Heathen  infants,  p.  28  ;  Four 
opinions,  p.  29  ;  Modern  Lu- 
theran ism,  p.  31. 


IV  TABLE    OF    CONTENTS. 


Page. 

V.  Anglican  Views, 32 

Early  form  of  the  Articles,  p. 
32  ;  Hooper,  p.  33  ;  Scrivener, 
p.  34 ;  Wall,  p.  34  ;  Present 
state  of  opinion,  p.  35. 

VI.  The  Reformed  Doctrine,    .     .  35 

Roots  of  the  doctrine,  p.  36  ; 
Zwingli's  teaching,  p.  37  ;  Five 
opinions,  p.  38  :  1.  All  dying  in- 
fants saved,  p.  38  ;  2.  Uncertain- 
ty as  to  all,  p.  39  ;  3.  All  cove- 
nanted infants  saved,  p.  40  ;  4. 
All  covenanted  and  some  others 
saved,  p.  41  ;  5.  Agnostic  as  to 
uncovenanted,  p.  42  ;  The  Re- 
formed Confessions,  p.  44  ;  Syn- 
od of  Dort,  p.  44  ;  Westminster 
Assembly,  p.  46  ;  Modern  Cal- 
vinism, p.  48. 

VII.  "Ethical"  Tendencies,     .     .  50 

Early  Pelagianizing,  p.  51 ;  Re- 
monstrantism,  p.  51  ;  Wesleyan 
Arminianism,  p.  53  ;  The  logical 
outcome,  p.  54  ;  Post-mortem 
probation,  p.  55  ;  Dr.  Kedney, 
p.  56. 

VIII.  The  Doctrinal  Development,  57 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  DOCTRINE 
OF  INFANT  SALVATION. 


The  task  which  we  set  before  us  in  this 
brief  paper  is  not  to  unravel  the  history  of 
opinion  as  to  the  salvation  of  infants  dying 
in  infancy,  but  the  much  more  circumscribed 
one  of  tracing  the  development  of  doctrine 
on  this  subject.  We  hope  to  show  that 
there  has  been  a  doctrine  as  to  the  salvation 
of  infants  common  to  all  ages  of  the  Church  ; 
but  that  there  has  also  been  in  this,  as  in 
other  doctrines,  a  progressive  correction  of 
crudities  in  its  conception,  by  which  the 
true  meaning  and  relations  of  the  common 
teaching  have  been  freed  from  deforming 
accretions  and  its  permanent  core  brought 
to  purer  expression. 

1.  It  is  fundamental  to  the  very  concep- 
tion of  Christianity  that  it  is  a  remedial 
scheme.  Christ  Jesus  came  to  save  sinners. 
The  first  Christians  had  no  difficulty  in 
understanding  and  confessing  that  Christ 
had  come  into  a  world  lost  in  sin  to  estab- 
lish a  kingdom  of  righteousness,  citizenship 
in  which  is  the  condition  of  salvation.     That 


6  THE    DOCTRINE    OF 


infants  were  admitted  into  this  citizenship 
they  did  not  question  ;  Irenaeus,  for  exam- 
ple, finds  it  appropriate  that  Christ  was 
born  an  infant  and  grew  by  natural  stages 
into  manhood,  since  "  he  came  to  save  all 
by  himself — all,  I  say,  who  by  him  are  born 
again  unto  God,  infants  and  children,  and 
boys  and  young  men,  and  old  men/'  and 
accordingly  passed  through  every  age  that 
he  might  sanctify  all.  Nor  did  they  ques- 
tion that  not  the  natural  birth  of  the  flesh, 
but  the  new  birth  of  the  Spirit  was  the  sole 
gateway  for  infants  too,  into  the  kingdom  ; 
communion  with  God  was  lost  for  all  alike, 
and  to  infants  too  it  was  restored  only  in 
Christ.*  Less  pure  elements,  however,  en- 
tered almost  inevitably  into  their  thought. 
The  ingrained  externalism  of  both  Jewish 
and  heathen  modes  of  conception,  when 
brought  into  the  Church  wrought  naturally 
toward  the  identification  of  the  kingdom  of 
Christ  with  the  external  Church,  and  of  re- 
generation with  baptism.  Already  in  Jus- 
tin and  Irenaeus,  the  word  "  regeneration" 
means  "  baptism  ;"  the  Fathers  uniformly 
understand  John  iii.  5  of  baptism.  The 
maxim  of  the  Patristic  age  thus  became 
extra  ecclesiam  nulla  salus ;  baptism  was 
held  to  be  necessary  to  salvation  with  the 

*  IrenjEUS,  Haer.,  ii.,  22,  4,  and  iii.,  18,  7. 


INFANT    SALVATION. 


necessity  of  means  ;  and  as  a  corollary,  no 
unbaptized  infant  could  be  saved.  How 
early  this  doctrine  of  the  necessity  of  bap- 
tism became  settled  in  the  Church  is  diffi- 
cult to  trace  in  the  paucity  of  very  early 
witnesses.  Tertullian  already  defends  it 
from  objection.*  The  reply  of  Cyprian  and 
his  fellow-bishops  to  Fidus  on  the  duty  of 
early  baptism,  presupposes  it.f  After  that, 
it  was  plainly  the  Church-doctrine  ;  and 
although  it  was  mitigated  in  the  case  of 
adults  by  the  admission  not  only  of  the  bap- 
tism of  blood,  but  also  that  of  intention,^ 
the  latter  mitigation  was  not  allowed  in  the 
case  of  infants.  The  whole  Patristic 
Church  agreed  that,  martyrs  excepted,  no 
infant  dying  unbaptized  could  enter  the 
kingdom  of  heaven. 

The  fairest  exponent  of  the  thought  of 
the  age  on  this  subject  is  Augustine,  who 
was  called  upon  to  defend  it  against  the 
Pelagian  error  that  infants  dying  unbaptized, 
while  failing  of  entrance  into  the  kingdom, 
yet  obtain  eternal  life.  His  constancy  in 
this  controversy  has  won  for  him  the  un- 
enviable title  of  clurus  infantum  pater — a 
designation  doubly  unjust,  in  that  not  only 

*  De  Bapt..  c.  12.  t  Epistle  lviii.  (lxiv.) 

%  With  what  limitations  may  he  conveniently  read  in  Wall, 
Hist,  of  Infant  Baptism,  ed.  2,  1707,  pp.  359  sq. 


8  THE    DOCTRINE    0# 

did  he  neither  originate  the  obnoxious  dog- 
ma nor  teach  it  in  its  harshest  form,  but  he 
was  even  preparing  its  destruction  by  the 
doctrines  of  grace,  of  which  he  was  more 
truly  the  father.*  Augustine  expressed  the 
Church-doctrine  moderately,  teaching,  of 
course,  that  infants  dying  unbaptized  would 
be  found  on  Christ's  left  hand  and  be  con- 
demned to  eternal  punishment,  but  also  not 
forgetting  to  add  that  their  punishment 
would  be  the  mildest  of  all,  and  indeed  that 
they  were  to  be  beaten  with  so  few  stripes 
that  he  could  not  say  it  would  have  been 
better  for  them  not  to  be  born.  \  No  doubt, 
others  of  the  Fathers  softened  the  doctrine 
even  below  this  ;  some  of  the  Greeks,  for 
instance,  like  Gregory  Nazianzen,  thought 
that  unbaptized  infants  ' i  are  neither  glori- 
fied nor  punished" — i.e.,  of  course,  go  into  a 
middle  state  similar  to  that  taught  by 
Pelagius.J;  But  it  is  not  to  Augustine,  but 
to  Fulgentius  (f  533), §  or  to  Alcimus  Avitus 
(f  525), ||  or  to  Gregory  the  Great  (f  604)  f 


*  Compare  The  Post-Mcene  Fathers,  edited  by  Dr.  Schaff, 
vol.  v.  (Augustin's  Anti-Pelagian  Treatises),  p.  lxx. 

t  Augustine's  doctrine  is  most  strongly  expressed  in  Sermo 
xiv.  In  De  Peccat.  Merit.,  c.  21  (xvi.),  and  Contra  Julian.,  v., 
11,  he  speaks  of  the  comparative  mildness  of  the  punishment. 

X  Cf.  Wall,  op.  cit.,  p.  365, 

§  De  Fide  ad  Petr.,  c.  27. 

\  Ad  Fascinam  Swwem. 

1"  Expos,  in  Job.,  i.,  16. 


INFANT    SALVATION. 


to  whom  we  must  go  for  the  strongest  ex- 
pression of  the  woe  of  imbaptized  infants. 
Probably  only  such  anonymous  objectors 
as  those  whom  Tertullian  confutes,*  or  such 
obscure  and  erratic  individuals  as  Vincentius 
Victor  whom  Augustine  convicts,  in  the 
whole  Patristic  age,  doubted  that  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  was  closed  to  all  infants  de- 
parting this  life  without  the  sacrament  of 
baptism. 

2.  If  the  general  consent  of  a  whole  age 
as  expressed  by  its  chief  writers,  including 
the  leading  bishops  of  Kome,  andbyitssynod- 
ical  decrees,  is  able  to  determine  a  doctrine, 
certainly  the  Patristic  Church  transmitted 
to  the  Middle  Ages  as  de  fide  that  infants 
dying  unbaptized  (with  the  exception  only 
of  those  who  suffer  martyrdom)  are  not  only 
excluded  from  heaven,  but  doomed  to  hell. 
Accordingly  the  mediaeval  synods  so  define  ; 
the  second  Council  of  Lyons  and  the  Coun- 
cil of  Florence  declare  that  "the  souls  of 
those  who  pass  away  in  mortal  sin  or  in  orig- 
inal sin  alone  descend  immediately  to  hell, 
to  be  punished,  however,  with  unequal  pen- 
alties." On  the  maxim  that  gradus  non 
mutant  speciem  we  must  adjudge  Petavius's 
argument  f  unanswerable,  that  this  deliver- 


*  De  BapL,  c.  12. 

+  Petavius,  Dog.  Theol.,  ed.  Paris,  1865,  ii.,  59  sq. 


10  THE    DOCTRINE   OF 

anoe  determines  tiie  punisnment  ot  un bap- 
tized infants  to  be  the  same  in  kind  (in  the 
same  hell)  with  that  of  adults  in  mortal  sin  : 
"  So  infants  are  tormented  with  unequal 
tortures  of  fire,  but  are  tormented  neverthe- 
less/' Nevertheless  scholastic  thought  on 
the  subject  was  characterized  by  a  success- 
ful effort  to  mollify  the  harshness  of  the 
Church-doctrine,  under  the  inrpulse  of  the 
prevalent  semi-Pelagian  conception  of  orig- 
inal sin.  The  whole  troup  of  schoolmen 
unite  in  distinguishing  bet  ween  poena  damni 
and  poena  sensus,  and  in  assigning  to  infants 
dying  unbaptized  only  the  former — i.e.,  the 
loss  of  heaven  and  the  beatific  vision,  and 
not  the  latter — i.e.,  positive  torment.  They 
differ  among  themselves  only  as  to  whether 
this  poena  damni,  which  alone  is  the  lot  of 
infants,  is  accompanied  by  a  painful  sense 
of  the  loss  (as  Lombard  held),  or  is  so  neg- 
ative as  to  involve  no  pain  at  all,  either  ex- 
ternal or  internal  (as  Aquinas  argued).  So 
complete  a  victory  was  won  by  this  mollifi- 
cation that  perhaps  only  a  single  theologian 
of  eminence  can  be  pointed  to  who  ventured 
still  to  teach  the  doctrine  of  Augustine  and 
Gregory — Gregory  Ariminensis  thence  call- 
ed tortor  infant  am;  and  Hurter  reminds 
us  that  even  he  did  not  dare  to  teach  it  de- 
finitively, but  submitted  it  to  the  judgment 


INFANT    SALVATTON.  11 


of  his  readers.  *  Dante,  whom  Andrew  Seth 
not  unjustly  calls  "  by  far  the  greatest  dis- 
ciple of  Aquinas,"  has  enshrined  in  his  im- 
mortal poem  the  leading  conception  of  his 
day,  when  he  pictures  the  "  young  children 
innocent,  whom  Death's  sharp  teeth  have 
snatched  ere  yet  they  were  freed  from  the 
sin  with  which  our  birth  is  blent/'  as  im- 
prisoned within  the  brink  of  hell,  "  where 
the  first  circle  girds  the  abyss  of  dread,"  in 
a  place  where  "  there  is  no  sharp  agony" 
but  "  dark  shadows  only,"  and  whence  "  no 
other  plaint  rises  than  that  of  sighs  which 
from  the  sorrow  without  pain  arise."  f  The 
novel  doctrine  attained  papal  authority  by  a 
decree  of  Innocent  III.  (c.  1200),  who  de- 
termined "  the  penalty  of  original  sin  to  be 
the  lack  of  the  vision  of  God,  but  the  pen- 
alty of  actual  sin  to  be  the  torments  of 
eternal  hell." 

A  more  timid  effort  was  also  made  in  this 
period  to  modify  the  inherited  doctrine  by 
the  application  to  it  of  a  development  of  the 
baptism  of  intention.  This  tendency  first 
appears  in  Hincmar  of  Rheims  (f  882),  who, 
in  a  particularly  hard  case  of  interdict  on  a 
whole  diocese,  expresses  the  hope  that  "  the 

*  Hurter,  Theolog.  Doc/mat.  Compend.,  1878,  iii.,  p.  516. 
Tract,  x.,  cap.  iii.,  §  729.    Wycliife  must  be  added. 

t  Hell,  iv.,  23  sq.  ;  Purgatory,  vii.,  25  sq. ;  Heaven,  xxxii.. 
76  sq.  (Plumptre's  translation), 


12  THE    DOCTRINE    OF 

faith  and  godly  desire  of  the  parents  and 
godfathers"  of  the  infants   who   had  thns 
died  unbaptized,  "  who  in  sincerity  desired 
baptism  for  them  but  obtained  it  not,  may 
profit  them  by  the  gift  of  Him  whose  spirit 
(which  gives  regeneration)  breathes  where 
it    pleases."        It    is    doubtful,    however, 
whether  he  would  have  extended  this  lofty 
doctrine  to  any  less  stringent  case.*     Cer- 
tainly no  similar  teaching  is  met  with  in  the 
Church,  except  with  reference  to  the  pecul- 
iarly hard  case  of  still-born  infants  of  Chris- 
tian parents.     The  schoolmen   {e.g.,  Alex- 
ander Hales  and  Thomas  Aquinas)  admitted 
a  doubt  whether  God  may  not  have  ways 
of  saving  such  unknown  to  us.     John  Ger- 
son,  in  a  sermon  before  the  Council  of  Con- 
stance, presses  the  inference  more  boldly,  f 
God,  he  declared,  has  not  so  tied  the  mercy 
of  his  salvation  to  common  laws  and  sacra- 
ments, but  that  without  prejudice  to  his  law 
he  can  sanctify  children  not  yet  born,  by  the 
baptism  of  his  grace  or  the  power  of  the 
Holy  Ghost.     Hence,  he  exhorts  expectant 
parents  to  pray  that  if  the  infant  is  to  die 
before   attaining   baptism,   the    Lord    may 
sanctify  it ;  and  who  knows  but  that  the 
Lord  may  hear  them  ?     He  adds,  however, 


*  Cf.  Waix,  op.  cit.,  p.  371. 

t  Sermon,  Be  Nat.  Mar.  Virg.,  consid,  2,  col.  33. 


INFANT    SALVATION.  13 

that  he  only  intends  to  suggest  that  all  hope 
is  not  taken  away  ;  for  there  is  no  certainty 
without  a  revelation.  Gabriel  Biel  (f  1495) 
followed  in  Gerson's  footsteps,*  holding  it 
to  be  accordant  with  God's  mercy  to  seek 
out  some  remedy  for  such  infants.  This 
teaching  remained,  however,  without  effect 
on  the  Church-dogma,  although  something 
similar  to  it  was,  among  men  who  served 
God  in  the  way  then  called  heresy,  fore- 
shadowing an  even  better  to  come.  John 
Wycliffe  (f  1384)  had  already  with  like  cau- 
tion expressed  his  unwillingness  to  pro- 
nounce damned  such  infants  as  were  in- 
tended for  baptism  by  their  parents,  if  they 
failed  to  receive  it  in  fact ;  though  he  could 
not,  on  the  other  hand,  assert  that  they  were 
saved,  f  His  followers  were  less  cautious, 
whether  in  England  or  Bohemia,  and  in 
this,  too,  approved  themselves  heralds  of  a 
brighter  day. 

3.  In  the  upheaval  of  the  sixteenth  century 
the  Church  of  Rome  found  her  task  in  har- 
monizing under  the  influence  of  the  scholas- 
tic teaching,  the  inheritance  which  the  some  • 
what  inconsistent  past  had  bequeathed  her. 
Four  varieties  of  opinion  sought  a  place  in 
her  teaching.  At  the  one  extreme  the  earlier 
doctrine  of  Augustine  and  Gregory,  that  in- 

*  In  iv.,  Sect,  iv.,  q.  11.  t  Cf.  Wall,  as  above, 


14  THE    DOCTRINE    OF 

fants  dying  unbaptized  suffer  eternally  the 
pains  of  sense,  found  again  advocates,  and 
that  especially  among  the  greatest  of  her 
scholars,    such   as    Noris,    Petau,    Driedo, 
Conry,   Berti.      At  the  other   extreme,    a 
Pelagianizing  doctrine  that  excluded  unbap- 
tized infants  from  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
and  the  life  promised  to  the  blessed,  and  yet 
accorded  to  them  eternal  life  and  natural 
happiness  in  a  place  between  heaven   and 
hell,  was  advocated  by  such  great  leaders  as 
Ambrosius   Catharinus,   Albertus    Pighius, 
Molina,    Sfondrati.      The   mass,    however, 
followed  the  schoolmen  in  the  middle  path 
of  parna  damni,  and,  like  the  schoolmen, 
only  differed  as  to  whether  the  punishment 
of  loss  involved  sorrow  (as  Bellarmine  held) 
or  was  purely  negative.*     The  Council  of 
Trent  (1545)  anathematized  those  who  affirm 
that  the  "  sacraments  of  the  new  law  are 
not  necessary  to  salvation,  and  that  without 
them  or  an  intention  of  them  men  obtain 
.     .     .     the    grace   of    justification  ;"    or, 
again,   that   "  baptism  is  free — that  is,   is 
not  necessary  to  salvation. ':     This  is  ex- 
plained by  the  Tridentine  Catechism  to  mean 
that   "unless  men  be  regenerated  to  God 

*  For  this  classification  see  Bellarmine,  Be  Amiss.  Gra- 
tia, etc.,  vi.,  1  ;  and  compare  Gerhard,  Loci  (Cotta's  ed.), 
vol.  ix.,  p.  279 ;  Chamier,  Panstrat.  Cath.  (1626),  iii.,  159,  or 
Spaniieim,  Chamierus  Contractus  (1643),  i>.  797, 


INFANT    SALVATION.  15 


through  the  grace  of  baptism,  they  are  born 
to  everlasting  misery  and  destruction, 
whether  their  parents  be  believers  or  un- 
believers ;"  while,  on  the  other  hand,  we 
are  credibly  informed  *  that  the  council  was 
near  anathematizing  as  a  Lutheran  heresy 
the  proposition  that  the  penalty  for  original 
sin  is  the  fire  of  hell.  The  Council  of 
Trent  at  least  made  renewedly  de  fide  that 
infants  dying  unbaptized  incurred  damna- 
tion, though  it  left  the  way  open  for  discus- 
sion as  to  the  kind  and  amount  of  their  pun- 
ishment, f 

The    Tridentine  deliverance,   of  course, 
does  not  exclude  the  baptism  of  blood  as  a 
substitute  for  baptism  of  water.      Neither 
does  it  seem  necessarily  to  exclude  the  ap- 
plication of  a  theory  of  baptism  of  intention 
to  infants.     Even  after  it,  therefore,  a  two- 
fold development  seems  to  have  been  possi- 
ble.    The  path  already  opened  by  Gerson 
and  Biel  might  have  been  followed' out,  and 
a  baptism  of  intention  developed  for  infants 
as  well  as  for  adults.     This  might  even  have 
been  pushed  on  logically,  so  as  to  cover  the 
case  of  all  infants  dying  in  infancy.     On  the 
principle  argued  by  Richard  Hooker,  J  for  ex- 

*  So  Father  Paul,  Hist,  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  c.  2. 

t  Perrone,  Protect.  Theol.  in  C'ompend.  Redact,  i.,  p  494 

X  Ecclesiastical  Polity,  v.,  ix.,  6. 


\* 


16  THE    DOCTRINE    OF 

ample,  that  the  unavoidable  failure  of  bap- 
tism in  the  case  of  Christian  children  can- 
not lose  them  salvation,  because  of  the  pre- 
sumed desire  and  purpose  of  baptism  for 
them  in  their  Christian  parents  and  in  the 
Church  of  God,  reasoners  might  have  pro- 
ceeded only  a  single  step  further  and  have 
said  that  the  desire  and  purpose  of  Mother 
Church  to  baptize  all  is  intention  of  baptism 
enough  for  all  dying  in  helpless  infancy. 
Thus  on  Eoman  principles  a  salvation  for  all 
dying  in  infancy  might  be  logically  deduced, 
and  infants,  as  more  helpless  and  less  guilty, 
be  given  the  preference  over  adults.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  might  be  argued  that  as 
baptism  either  in  re  or  in  voto  must  medi- 
ate salvation,  and  as  infants  by  reason  of 
their  age  are  incapable  of  the  intention,  they 
cannot  be  saved  unless  they  receive  it  in 
fact,*  and  thus  infants  be  discriminated 
against  in  favor  of  adults.  This  second  path 
is  the  one  which  has  been  actually  followed 
by  the  theologians  of  the  Church  of  Rome, 
with  the  ultimate  result  that  not  only  are  in- 
fants discriminated  against  in  favor  of 
adults,  but  the  more  recent  theologians  seem 
almost  ready  to  discriminate  against  the  in- 

*  Thus,  e.g.,  Dominicus  de  Soto  expresses  it  {Be  Natura  et 
Gratia,  ii.  10)  :  "  It  is  most  firmly  established  in  the  Church 
that  no  infant  apart  from  baptism  in  re — since  he  cannot  have 
it  in  voto — enters  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 


INFANT    SALVATION.  1? 


fants  of  Christians  as  over  against  those  of 
the  heathen.* 

The  application  of  the  baptism  of  inten- 
tion to  infants  was  not  abandoned,  however, 
without  some  protest  from  the  more  tender- 
hearted. Cardinal  Cajetan  defended  in  the 
Council  of  Trent  itself  Gerson's  proposition 
that  the  desire  of  godly  parents  might  be 
taken  in  lieu  of  the  actual  baptism  of  chil- 
dren dying  in  the  womb.f  Cassander  (1570) 
encouraged  parents  to  hope  and  pray  for 
children  so  dying.  J;  Bianchi  (1768)  holds 
that  such  children  may  be  saved  per  obla- 

*  This  grows  out  of  the  development  of  the  doctrines  of  igno- 
rance and  "  invincible  ignorance,"  the  latter  of  which  was  au- 
thoritatively defined  by  Pope  Pius  IX.  in  his  Encyclicaladdress- 
ed  to  the  Bishops  of  Italy.  August  10, 1863.  See  an  interesting 
statement  concerning  it  in  Newman's  A  Letter  to  the  Duke  of 
Norfolk,  on  the  Infallibility  of  the  Pope.  Thus  while  an  abso- 
lute necessity  for  baptism  in  re  is  posited  for  the  infants  of 
even  Christian  parents,  even  though  they  die  in  the  womb,  on 
the  other  hand,  as  the  law  of  baptism  is  in  force  only  where  it 
is  known,  and  even  an  ignorance  morally  invincible  (as  among 
sectaries)  is  counted  true  ignorance,  not  even  an  intention  of 
baptism  is  demanded  of  the  heathen  or  of  certain  sectaries. 
Gousset,  Theolog.  Dogmat.,  10  ed.,  Paris,  1866,  i.,  548,  549, 
351,  ii.,  382,  may  be  profitably  consulted  in  this  connection. 
Among  the  heathen  thus  the  old  remedies  for  sin  are  still  prob- 
ably valid  ;  St.  Bernard  says  (quoted  approvingly  by  Gousset), 
"Among  the  Gentiles  as  many  as  are  found  faithful,  we  believe 
that  the  adults  are  expiated  by  faith  and  the  sacrifices  ;  but 
the  faith  of  the  parents  profits  the  children,  nay,  even  suffices 
for  them.,,  If  the  fathers  are  saved,  why  not  the  children  ? 
Might  not  a  Christian's  infant  dying  in  the  womb  be  said  to  be 
"  invincibly  ignorant "  ?  Why  need  the  "  law  of  baptism  "  be 
eo  inflexibly  extended  to  it  ? 

t  In  3  Part.  Thomae,  Q.  68,  art.  2,  et  11.    X  De  bapt.  infant. 


18  THE    DOCTRINE    OF 

tionem  pueri  quam  Deo  mater  extrinsecus 
faciat.*  Eusebius  Amort  (1758)  teaches 
that  God  may  be  moved  by  prayer  to  grant 
justification  to  such  extra-sacramentally.  f 
Even  somewhat  bizarre  efforts  have  been 
made  to  escape  the  sad  conclusion  proclaimed 
by  the  Church.  Thus  Klee  holds  that  a 
lucid  interval  is  accorded  to  infants  in  the 
article  of  death,  so  that  they  may  conceive 
the  wish  for  baptism. \  An  obscure  French 
writer  supposes  that  they  may,  "  shut  up  in 
their  mother's  womb,  know  God,  love  him, 
and  have  the  baptism  of  desire."  §  A  more 
obscure  German  conceives  that  infants  re- 
main eternally  in  the  same  state  of  rational 
development  in  which  they  die,  and  hence 
enjoy  all  they  are  capable  of  ;  if  they  die  in 
the  womb  they  either  fall  back  into  the 
original  force  from  which  they  were  pro- 
duced, or  enjoy  a  happiness  no  greater  than 
that  of  trees.  ||  These  protests  of  the  heart 
have  awakened,  however,  no  response  in  the 
Church,^  which  has  preferred  to  hold  fast 

*  De  Remedio    .    .    .    pro  parentis. 

t  Theolog.  Moral.,  ii.,  xi.,  3. 

X  Dog.  iii.,  2,  §  1. 

§  De  la  Marne,  Traite  metaphysique  des  Dogmes  de  la 
Trinite,  etc.,  Paris,  182(5. 

II  Hermessius,  Zeitschr.  f.  Phil.  u.  kath.  Theol.,  Bonn.. 
1832. 

«[  Compare  Vasqitez,  in  3  P,  s.  Th.,  disp.  cli.,  cap.  1  ;  Hru- 
ter,  op.  cit.,  1878,  iii.,  516  sq. ;  Perrone,  Frcelect.  Theolog. 
(1839),  vi.  55. 


INFANT    SALVATION".  19 

to  the  dogma  that  the  failure  of  baptism  in 
infants,  dying  such,  excludes  ipso  facto  from 
heaven,  and  to  seek  its  comfort  in  mitigat- 
ing still  farther  than  the  scholastics  them- 
selves the  nature  of  t\v&t poena  damni  which 
alone  it  allows  as  punishment  of  original  sin. 
And  if  we  may  assume  that  such  writers  as 
Perrone,  Hurter,  Gousset,  and  Kendrick  are 
typical  of  modern  Roman  theology  through- 
out the  world,  certainly  that  theology  may 
be  said  to  have  come,  in  this  pathway  of 
mitigation,  as  near  to  positing  salvation  for 
all  infants  dying  unbaptized  as  the  rather 
intractable  deliverances  of  early  popes  and 
later  councils  permit  to  them.  They  all 
teach,  of  course  (as  the  definitions  of  Flor- 
ence and  Trent  require  of  them) — in  the 
words  of  Perrone* — "  that  children  of  this 
kind  descend  into  hell,  or  incur  damnation  ;" 
but  (as  Hurter  saysf),  "  although  all  Cath- 
olics agree  that  infants  dying  without  bap- 
tism are  excluded  from  the  beatific  vision 
and  so  suffer  loss,  are  lost  (pati  damnum, 
damnari) ;  they  yet  differ  among  them- 
selves in  their  determination  of  the  nature 
and  condition  of  the  state  into  which  such 
infants  pass."  As  the  idea  of  "  damnation" 
may  thus  be  softened  to  a  mere  failure  to  at- 
tain, so  the  idea  of  "  hell  "  may  be  elevated 

*  Campend.  1861,  i.,  494,  No.  585.  t  Op.  cit.,  No.  729. 


20  THE    DOCTRINE    OF 


to  that  of  a  natural  paradise.  Hurter  him- 
self is  inclined  to  a  somewhat  severer  doc- 
trine ;  but  Perrone  (supported  by  such  great 
lights  as  Balmes,  Berlage,  Oswald,  Lessius, 
and  followed  not  afar  off  by  Gousset  and 
Kendrick)  reverts  to  the  Pelagianizing  view 
of  Oatharinus  and  Molina  and  Sfondrati— 
which  Petau  called  a  "fabrication"  cham- 
pioned indeed  by  Oatharinus  but  originated 
"  by  Pelagius  the  heretic/'  and  which  Bel- 
larmine  contended  was  contra  fidem—and 
teaches  that  unbaptized  infants  enter  into  a 
state  deprived  of  all  supernatural  benefits, 
indeed,  but  endowed  with  all  the  happiness 
of  which  pure  nature  is  capable.  Their 
state  is  described  as  having  the  nature  of 
penalty  and  of  damnation  when  conceived 
of  relatively  to  the  supernatural  happiness 
from  which  they  are  excluded  by  original 
sin  ;  but  when  conceived  of  in  itself  and  ab- 
solutely, it  is  a  state  of  pure  nature,  and  ac- 
cordingly the  words  of  Thomas  Aquinas  are 
applied  to  it  :  "  They  are  joined  to  God  by 
participation  in  natural  goods,  and  so  also 
can  rejoice  in  natural  knowledge  and  love."  * 
Thus,  after  so  many  ages,  the  Pelagian  con- 
ception of  the  middle  state  for  infants  has 
obtained  its  revenge  on  the  condemnation 
of  the  Church.     No  doubt  it  is  not  admit- 


*  Cmnpend,  1861,  i.,  494,  cf.  ii.,  252. 


INFANT    SALVATION.  21 


ted  that  this  is  a  return  to  Pelagianism  ; 
Perrone,  for  example,  argues  that  Pelagius 
held  the  doctrine  of  a  natural  beatitude  for 
infants  as  one  unrelated  to  sin,  while 
"  Catholic  theologians  hold  it  with  the  death 
of  sin  ;  so  that  the  exclusion  from  the  beatific 
vision  has  the  nature  of  penalty  and  of  dam- 
nation proceeding  from  sin."  *  Is  there 
more  than  a  verbal  difference  here  ?  At  all 
events,  whatever  difference  exists  is  a  dif- 
ference not  in  the  doctrine  of  the  state  of 
unbaptized  infants  after  death,  but  in  the 
doctrine  of  the  fall.  In  deference  to  the 
language  of  fathers  and  councils  and  popes, 
this  natural  paradise  is  formally  assigned  to 
that  portion  of  the  other  world  designated 
"  hell,"  but  in  its  own  nature  it  is  precisely 
the  Pelagian  doctrine  of  the  state  of  unbap- 
tized infants  after  death.  By  what  expedi- 
ent such  teaching  is  to  be  reconciled  with 
the  other  doctrines  of  the  Church  of  Rome, 
or  with  its  former  teaching  on  this  same 
subject,  or  with  its  boast  of  semper  eadem, 
is  more  interesting  to  its  advocates  within 
that  communion  than  to  us.f  Our  interest 
as  historians  of  opinion  is  exhausted  in 
simply  noting  the  fact  that  the  Pelagianiz- 


*  Compend,  1861,  i.,  494,  No.  590. 

t  See  some  of  the  difficulties  very  mildly  stated  in  Hurter, 

loc.  cit. 


22  THE    DOCTRINE    OF 


ing  process,  begun  in  the  Middle  Ages  by 
assigning  to  infants  guilty  only  of  original 
sin  liability  to  poena  damni  alone,  culminates 
in  our  day  in  their  assignment  by  the  most 
representative  theologians  of  modern  Rome 
to  a  natural  paradise. 

4.  It  is,  no  doubt,  as  a  protest  against  the 
harshness  of  the  Romanist  syllogism,  "  No 
man  can  attain  salvation  who  is  not  a  mem- 
ber of  Christ ;  but  no  one  becomes  a  mem- 
ber of  Christ  except  by  baptism,  received 
either  in  re  or  in  voto,"*  that  this  Pelagian- 
izing  drift  is  to  be  regarded.  Its  fault  is 
that  it  impinges  by  way  of  mitigation  and 
modification  on  the  major  premise,  which, 
however,  is  the  fundamental  proposition  of 
Christianity.  Its  roots  are  planted,  in  the 
last  analysis,  in  a  conception  of  men,  not  as 
fallen  creatures,  children  of  wrath,  and  de- 
serving of  a  doom  which  can  only  be  escaped 
by  becoming  members  of  Christ,  but  as 
creatures  of  God  with  claims  on  him  for 
natural  happiness,  but,  of  course,  with  no 
claims  on  him  for  such  additional  supernat- 
ural benefits  as  he  may  yet  lovingly  confer 
on  his  creatures  in  Christ.  On  the  other 
hand,  that  great  religious  movement  which 
we  call  the   Reformation,  the  constitutive 

*  The  words  are  Aquinas's  (p.  3.  q.  68,  art.  1) ;   see  them 
quoted  and  applied  by  Pkrrone,  Compend.,  ii.,  253. 


INFANT    SALVATION.  23 

principle  of  which  was  its  revised  doctrine 
of  the  Church,  ranged  itself  properly 
against  the  fallacious  minor  premise,  and 
easily  broke  its  bonds  with  the  sword  of  the 
word.  Men  are  not  constituted  members  of 
Christ  through  the  Church,  but  members 
of  the  Church  through  Christ  ;  they  are 
not  made  the  members  of  Christ  by  baptism 
which  the  Church  gives,  but  by  faith,  the 
gift  of  God  ;  and  baptism  is  the  Church's 
recognition  of  this  inner  fact.  The  full 
benefit  of  this  better  apprehension  of  the 
nature  of  that  Church  of  God  membership 
in  which  is  the  condition  of  salvation,  was 
not  reaped,  however,  by  all  Protestants  in 
equal  measure.  It  was  the  strength  of  the 
Lutheran  movement  that  it  worked  out  its 
positions  not  theoretically  or  all  at  once,  but 
step  by  step,  as  it  was  forced  on  by  the  logic 
of  events  and  experience.  But  it  was  an  in- 
cidental evil  that,  being  compelled  to  ex- 
press its  faith  early,  its  first  confession  was 
framed  before  the  full  development  of  Prot- 
estant thought,  and  subsequently  contracted 
the  faith  of  Lutheranism  into  too  narrow 
channels.  The  Augsburg  Confession  con- 
tains the  true  doctrine  of  the  Church  as  the 
congregatio  sanctorum  ;  but  it  committed 
Lutheranism  to  the  doctrine  that  baptism 
is  necessary  to  salvation  (Art.  IX.)  in  such  a 


24  THE    DOCTRINE    OF 

sense  that  children  are  not  saved  without 
baptism  (Art.  IX.),*  inasmuch  as  the  con- 
demnation and  eternal  death  brought  by 
original  sin  upon  all  are  not  removed  except 
from  those  who  are  born  again  by  baptism 
and  the  Holy  Ghost  (Art.  II.) — i.e.,  to  the 
doctrine  that  the  necessity  of  baptism  is  the 
necessity  of  means.  In  the  direction  of 
mollifying  interpretation  of  this  deliverance, 
the  theologians  urge  :  1.  That  the  necessity 
affirmed  is  not  absolute  but  ordinary,  and 
binds  man  and  not  God.  2.  That  as  the  as- 
sertion is  directed  against  the  Anabaptists, 
it  is  not  the  privation,  but  the  contempt  of 
baptism  that  is  affirmed  to  be  damning.  3. 
That  the  necessity  of  baptism  is  not  intended 
to  be  equalized  with  that  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
4.  That  the  affirmation  is  not  that  for  orig- 
inal sin  alone  any  one  is  actually  damned, 
but  only  that  all  are  therefor  damnable. 
There  is  force  in  these  considerations.  But 
they  do  not  avail  wholly  to  relieve  the 
Augsburg  Confession  of  limiting  salvation 
to  those  who  enjoy  the  means  of  grace,  and 
as  concerns  infants,  to  those  who  receive 
the  sacrament  of  baptism. 

It  is  not  to  be  held,  of  course,  that  it  asserts 
such  an  absolute  necessity  of  baptism  for 
infants  dying  such,  as  admits  no  exceptions. 

*  "  Or  outside  the  Church  of  Christ,"  as  is  added  in  ed.  1540. 


INFANT    SALVATION.  25 

From  Luther  and  Melanchthon  down,  Lu- 
theran theologians  have  always  taught  what 
Hunnins  expressed  in  the  Saxon  Visitation 
Articles  :  "  Unless  a  person  be  born  again" 
of  water  and  the  Spirit,  he  cannot  enter  into 
the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Cases  of  necessity 
are  not  intended,  however,  bij  this.'''  Luther- 
an theology,  in  other  words,  takes  its  stand 
positively  on  the  ground  of  baptism  of  in- 
tention as  applied  to  infants,  as  over  against 
its  denial  by  the  Church  of  Rome.  "  Lu- 
ther," says  Dorner,*  "  holds  fast,  in  general, 
to  the  necessity  of  baptism  in  order  to  salva- 
tion, but  in  reference  to  the  children  of 
Christians  who  have  died  unbaptized,  he 
says  :  '  The  Holy  and  Merciful  God  will 
think  kindly  of  them.  What  he  will  do 
with  them  he  has  revealed  to  no  one,  that 
baptism  may  not  be  despised,  but  has  re- 
served to  his  own  mercy  ;  God  does  wrong 
to  no  man.'  "  \  From  the  fact  that  Jewish 
children  dying  before  circumcision  were  not 
lost,  Luther  argues  that  neither  are  Chris- 
tian children  dying  before  baptism  ;J  and  he 
comforts  Christian  mothers  of  still-born 
babes  by  declaring  that  they  should  under- 
stand   that   such    infants   are   saved. 8      So 


*  Hi.-/,  of  Protestant  Theology  (E.T.),  i.,  171. 
t  Opp.,  xxii.,  872  (Dorner's  quotation). 
X  Com.  in  Gen.,  c.  17. 
§  Christliche  Bedenken, 


26  THE    DOCTRINE    OF 


Bugenhagen,  under  Luther's  direction, 
teaches  that  Christians'  children  intended  for 
baptism  are  not  left  to  the  hidden  judgment 
of  God  if  they  fail  of  baptism,  but  have  the 
promise  of  being  received  by  Christ  into  his 
kingdom.  *  It  is  not  necessary  to  quote  later 
authors  on  a  point  on  which  all  are  unani- 
mous ;  let  it  suffice  to  add  only  the  clear 
statement  of  the  developed  Lutheranism  of 
John  Gerhard  (1610-22)  :  f  "  We  walk  in 
the  middle  way,  teaching  that  baptism  is, 
indeed,  the  ordinary  sacrament  of  initiation 
and  means  of  regeneration  necessary  to  all, 
even  to  the  children  of  believers,  for  regen- 
eration and  salvation  ;  but  vet  that  in  the 
event  of  privation  or  impossibility  the  chil- 
dren of  Christians  are  saved  by  an  ex- 
traordinary and  peculiar  divine  dispensation. 
For  the  necessity  of  baptism  is  not  absolute, 
but  ordinary  ;  we  on  our  part  are  obliged  to 
the  necessity  of  baptism,  but  there  must  be 
no  denial  of  the  extraordinary  action  of  God 
in  infants  offered  to  Christ  by  pious  parents 
and  the  Church  in  prayers,  and  dying  be- 
fore the  opportunity  of  baptism  can  be  given 
them,  since  God  does  not  so  bind  his  grace 
and  saving  efficacy  to  baptism  as  that,  in 

*  See  for  several  such  quotations  brought  together,  Lau- 
rence, Bampton  Lectures,  1804,  ed.  1820,  p.  272.  Also  Ger- 
hard as  in  next  note. 

t  Ed.  Cotta,  vol.  ix.,  p.  284. 


INFANT    SALVATIOX.  27 


the  event  of  privation,  he  may  not  both  wish 
and  be  able  to  act  extraordinarily.     We  dis- 
tinguish,  then,  between  necessity  on  God's 
part  and  on  our  part  ;  between  the  case  of 
privation  and  the  ordinary  way  ;  and  also 
between  infants  born  in  the  Church  and  out 
of  the  Church.     Concerning    infants  born 
out  of  the  Church,  we  say  with  the  apostle 
(1  Cor.  v.  12,  13),  '  For  what  have  I  to  do 
with  judging  them  that  are  without  ?     Do 
not  you  judge  them  that  are  within  ?     For 
them     that     are    without    God    judgeth.' 
Wherefore,  since  there  is  no  promise  con- 
cerning them,   we  commit  them  to  God's 
judgment  ;  and  yet  we  hold  to  no  place  in- 
termediate   between  heaven  and  hell,  con- 
cerning which  there  is  utter  silence  in  Scrip- 
ture.    But  concerning  infants  born  in  the 
Church  we  have  better  hope.      Pious  parents 
properly  bring  their  children  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible to  baptism  as  the  ordinary  means  of  re- 
generation, and  offer  them  in  baptism  to 
Christ  ;  and  those  who  are  negligent  in  this, 
so  as  through  lack  of  care  or  wicked  con- 
tempt for  the  sacrament  to  deprive  their 
children  of  baptism,  shall  hereafter  render 
a  very  heavy  account  to  God,  since  they  have 
'  despised  the  counsel  of  God '  (Luke  vii. 
30).     Yet  neither  can  nor  ought  we  rashly 
to  condemn  those  infants  which  die  in  their 


28  THE    DOCTRINE   OE 

mothers'  wombs  or  by  some  sudden  accident 
before  they  receive  baptism,  but  may 
rather  hold  that  the  prayers  of  pious  par- 
ents, or,  if  the  parents  are  negligent  of  this, 
the  prayers  of  the  Church,  poured  out  for 
these  infants,  are  clemently  heard  and  they 
are  received  by  God  into  grace  and  life." 

From  this  passage,  too,  we  may  learn  the 
historical  attitude  of  Lutheranism  toward 
the  entirely  different  question  of  the  fate 
of  infants  dying  outside  the  pale  of  the 
Church  and  the  reach  of  its  ordinances,  a 
multitude  so  vast  that  it  is  wholly  unreason- 
able to  suppose  them  simply  (like  Christians' 
children  deprived  of  baptism)  exceptions  to 
the  rule  laid  down  in  the  Augsburg  Confes- 
sion. It  is  perfectly  clear  that  the  Lu- 
theran Confessions  extend  no  hope  for  them. 
It  is  doubtful  whether  it  can  even  be  said 
that  they  leave  room  for  hope  for  them. 
Melanchthon  in  the  Apology  is  no  doubt 
arguing  against  the  Anabaptists,  and  intends 
to  prove  only  that  children  should  be  bap- 
tized ;  but  his  words  in  explanation  of  Art. 
IX.  deserve  consideration  in  this  connec- 
tion also — where  he  argues  that  "  the  prom- 
ise of  salvation"  "  does  not  pertain  to  those 
who  are  without  the  Church  of  Christ,  where 
there  is  neither  the  Word  nor  the  Sacra- 
ments, because  the  kingdom  of  Christ  exists 


INFANT    SALVATION.  29 


only  with  the  Word  and   the  Sacraments." 
Luther's  personal   opinion  as  to  the  fate  of 

heathen    children   dying   in    infancy    is   in 
doubt  ;  now  he  expresses  the  hope  that  the 
good  and  gracious  God  may  have  something 
good  in  view  for  them  ;*  and  again,  though 
leaving  it  to  the  future  to  decide,  he  only 
expects  something  milder  for  them  than  for 
the    adults     outside     the    Church  ;f     and 
Bugenhagen,  under  his  eye,   contrasts  the 
children  of  Turks  and  Jews  with  those  of 
Christians,   as  not  sharers  in  salvation  be- 
cause not  in  Christ.  J     From  the  very  first 
the  opinion  of  the  theologians  was  divided 
on  the  subject.      (1)  Some  held  that  all  in- 
fants except  those  baptized  in  fact  or  inten- 
tion are  lost,  and  ascribed  to  them,  of  course 
—for  this  was  the   Protestant  view  of  the 
desert  of  original  sin — both  privative  and 
positive  punishment.     This  party  included 
such  theologians  as  Quistorpius,    Calovius, 
Fechtei,  Zeibichius,  Buddeus.     (2)  Others 
judged  that  we  may  cherish  the  best  of  hope 
for  their    salvation.       Here  belong   Dann- 
hauer,  Hulsemann,  Scherzer,  J.  A.  Osian- 
der,   Wagner,  Musaeus,  Cotta,  and  Spener. 
But  the  great  body  of  Lutherans,  including 
such  names  as  Gerhard,  Calixtus,  Meisner, 

*  Cf.  Dorner,  Hist.  Prof.  Theol.,  i.,  171. 
t  Cf.  Laurence,  Hampton  Lectures,  p.  272. 
X  Ibid. 


30  THE    DOCTRINE   OF 

Baldwin,  Bechmann,  Hoffmann,  Hunnius, 
held  that  nothing  is  clearly  revealed  as  to 
the  fate  of  such  infants,  and  thev  must  be 
left  to  the  judgment  of  God.  (3)  Some  of 
these,  like  Ilunnius,  were  inclined  to  believe 
that  they  will  be  saved.  (4)  Others,  with 
more  (like  Hoffmann)  or  less  (like  Gerhard) 
clearness,  were  rather  inclined  to  believe 
they  will  be  lost ;  but  all  alike  held  that  the 
means  for  a  certain  decision  are  not  in  our 
hands.*  Thus  Hunnius  says  :f  "  That  the 
infants  of  Gentiles,  outside  the  Church,  are 
saved,  Ave  cannot  pronounce  as  certain,  since 
there  exists  nothing  definite  in  the  Scrip- 
tures concerning  the  matter  ;  so  neither  do 
I  dare  simply  to  assert  that  these  children 
are  indiscriminately  damned.  .  .  .  Let  us 
commit  them,  therefore,  to  the  judgment  of 
God."  And  Hoffmann  says  :J;  "  On  the 
question,  whether  the  infants  of  the  heathen 
nations  are  lost,  most  of  our  theologians  pre- 
fer to  suspend  their  judgment.  To  affirm 
as  a  certain  thing  that  they  are.  lost  could 
not  be  done  without  rashness." 

This  cautious  agnostic  attitude  has  the 
best  right  to  be  called  the  historical  Lu- 
theran attitude.    It  is  even  the  highest  posi- 

*  This  classification  is  taken  from  Cotta  (Gerhard's  Loci,  ix., 
282). 
t  Qitcest.  in  cap.  vii.  Gen. 
$  See  Kbatjth,  Conservative  Reformation,  p.  433. 


IN  FA  XT    SALVATION.  31 


tion  thoroughly  consistent  with  the  genius 
of  the  Lutheran  system  and  the  stress  which 
it  lays  on  the  means  of  grace.     The  drift  in 
more  modern  times  has,  however,  been  de- 
cidedly in  the  direction  of  affirming  the  sal- 
vation of  all  that  die  in  infancy,  on  grounds 
identical  with  those  pleaded  by  this  party 
from  the  beginning — the  infinite  mercy  of 
God,  the  universality  of  the  atonement,  the 
inability   of   infants   to  resist   grace,   their 
guiltlessness  of  despising  the  ordinance,  and 
the  like.*     Even  so,  however,  careful  mod- 
ern   Lutherans   moderate  their  assertions. 
They  may  affirm  that  "it  is  not  the  doc- 
trine  of   our  Confession  that  any   human 
creature  has  ever  been  or  ever  will  be  lost 
purely  for  original  sin  ;"  f  but  they  speak  of 
the  matter  as  a  "  dark"  or  a  "  difficult  ques- 
tion/' \  and  suspend  the  salvation  of  such 
infants  on  an  ''extraordinary"  and    "un- 
covenanted  "  exercise  of  God's  mercy.  §    We 
cannot  rise  to  a  conviction  or  a  "  faith"  in 
the   matter,    but   may   attain  to   a    '  well- 
grounded  hope/'  based  on  our  apprehension 
of  God's  all-embracing  mercy.  ||     In  short, 
the  Lutheran  doctrine  seems  to  lay  no  firm 

*  Compare  the  statements  in  Cotta  and  Kraxtth,  locc.  citt. 

t  Krauth,  I.e.,  p.  4^9. 

%  lb.,  pp.  561-63. 

§  lb.,  pp.  430,  437. 

II  Krauth,  Infant  Salvation  in  the  Calvinistic\System,  p.  22. 


'12  THE    DOCTRINE    OF 

foundation  for  a  conviction  of  the  salvation 
of  all  infants  dying  in  infancy  ;  at  the  best 
it  is  held  to  leave  open  an  uncontradicted 
hope.  We  are  afraid  we  must  say  more  ;  it 
seems  to  contradict  this  hope.  For  should 
this  hope  prove  true,  it  would  no  longer  be 
true  that  "  baptism  is  necessary  to  salva- 
tion/' even  ordinarily  ;  the  exception  would 
be  the  rule.  Nor  would  the  fundamental 
conception  of  the  Lutheran  theory  of  salva- 
tion— that  grace  is'  in  the  means  of  grace — 
be  longer  tenable.  The  logic  of  the  Lu- 
theran system  leaves  little  room  for  the  salva- 
tion  of  all  infants  dying  in  infancy,  and  if 
their  salvation  should  prove  to  be  a  fact,  the 
integrity  of  the  system  is  endangered. 

5.  A  similar  difficulty  is  experienced  by 
all  types  of  Protestant  thought  in  which  the 
older  idea  of  the  Church,  as  primarily  an 
external  body,  has  been  incompletely  re- 
formed. This  may  be  illustrated,  for  ex- 
ample, from  the  history  of  thought  in  the 
Church  of  England.  The  Thirty-nine  Ar- 
ticles, in  their  final  form,  are  thoroughly 
Protestant  and  Reformed.  And  many  of 
the  greatest  English  theologians,  even  among 
those  not  most  closely  affiliated  with  Geneva, 
from  the  very  earliest  days  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, have  repudiated  the  "  cruel  judgment" 
of  the  Church  of  Rome  as  to  the  fate  of  in- 


INFANT    SALVATION.  33 

fants  dying  unbaptized.  But  this  repudia- 
tion was  neither  immediate,  nor  has  it  ever 
been  universal.  The  second  of  the  Ten 
Articles  of  Henry  VIII.  (1536)  not  only  de- 
clares that  the  promise  of  grace  and  eternal 
life  is  adjoined  to  baptism,  but  adds  that  in- 
fants ' '  by  the  sacrament  of  baptism  do  also 
obtain  remission  of  their  sins,  the  grace  and 
favor  of  God,  and  be  made  thereby  the  very 
sons  and  children  of  God  ;  insomuch  as  in- 
fants and  children  dying  in  their  infancy 
shall  undoubtedly  be  saved  thereby,  and  else 
not. ' '  The  first  liturgy  embodied  the  same 
implication.  The  growing  Protestant  senti- 
ment soon  revised  it  out  of  these  standards.* 
But  there  have  never  lacked  those  in  the 
Church  of  England  who  still  taught  the 
necessity  of  baptism  to  salvation.  If  it  can 
boast  of  a  John  Hooper,  who  speaks  of  "  the 
ungodly  opinion  that  attributeth  the  salva- 
tion of  men  unto  the  receiving  of  an  ex- 
ternal sacrament/'  "as  though  the  Holy 
Spirit  could  not  be  carried  by  faith  into 
the  penitent  and  sorrowful  conscience  ex- 
cept it  rid  always  in  a  chariot  and  external 
sacrament,"  and  who  (probably  first  after 
Zwingli)  taught  that  all  infants  dying  in  in- 
fancv,  whether  children  of  Christians  or  in- 


*  For  an  outline  of  the  history  see  Schaff,  Creeds  of  Chris- 
tendom, i.,  642  ;  cf.  Laurence,  op.  cit.,  p.  176  sq. 


34  THE    DOCTRINE    OF 

fidels,  are  saved  ;*  it  also  has  counted  among 
its  teachers  many  who  held  with  Matthew 
Scrivener  that  Christ's  "  death  and  passion 
are  not  communicated  unto  any  but  by  out- 
ward signs  and  sacraments/'  so  that  "  either 
all  children  must  be  damned,  being  unbap- 
tized,  or  they  must  have  baptism."  f  The 
general  position  of  the  Church  up  to  his  day 
is  thus  conceived  by  Wall  ij  "  The  Church 
of  England  have  declared  their  sense  of  its 
[i.e.,  baptism's]  necessity  by  reciting  the  say- 
ing of  our  Saviour,  John  iii.  5,  both  in  the 
Office  of  Baptism  of  Infants  and  also  in  that 
for  those  of  riper  years.  .  .  .  Concern- 
ing the  everlasting  state  of  an  infant  that 
by  misfortune  dies  unbaptized,  the  Church 
of  England  has  determined  nothing  (it  were 
fit  that  all  churches  would  leave  such  things 
to  God)  save  that  they  forbid  the  ordinary 
Office  for  Burial  to  be  used  for  such  an  one  ; 
for  that  were  to  determine  the  point  and 
acknowledge  him  for  a  Christian  brother. 
And  tho'  the  most  noted  men  in  the  said 
Church  from  time  to  time  since  the  Eefor- 
mation  of  it  to  this  time  have  expressed  their 
hopes  that  God  will  accept  the  purpose  of 


*  An  Answer  to  My  Lord  of  Winchester's  Book,  etc.,  1547,  in 
Parker  Society's  Early  Writings  of  Bishop  Hooper,  pp.  129, 
131. 

t  Course  of  Divinity,  London,  1674,  p.  196. 

%  Hist,  of  Infant  Baptism,  ed.  2,  1707,  p.  377. 


INFANT    SALVATION.  35 


the  parent  for  the  deed  ;  yet  they  have  done 
it  modestly  and  much  as  Wycliffe  did,  rather 
not  determining  the  negative  than  absolutely 
determining  the  positive,  that  such  a  child 
shall  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven.' y 
I  f  this  is  all  that  can  be  said  of  the  children 
of  the  faithful,  lacking  baptism,  where  will 
those  of  the  infidel  appear  ?  Many  other 
opinions — more  Protestant  or  more  Pelagian 
— have,  of  course,  found  a  home  for  them- 
selves in  the  bosom  of  this  most  inclusive 
cummunion,  but  they  are  no  more  charac- 
teristic of  its  teaching  than  that  of  Wall. 
It  is  only  needful  to  remember  that  there  are 
still  many  among  the  clergy  of  the  Church 
of  England  who,  retaining  the  old,  unre- 
formed  view  of  the  Church,  still  believe 
"  that  the  relationship  of  sonship  to  God  is 
imparted  through  baptism  and  is  not  im- 
parted without  it  ;"  *  though,  of  course, 
many  others,  and  we  hope  still  a  large  ma- 
jority, would  repudiate  this  position  as  in- 
credible. 

6.  It  was  among  the  Reformed  alone  that 
the  newly  recovered  scriptural  apprehension 
of  the  Church  to  which  the  promises  were 
given,  as  essentially  not  an  externally  or- 
ganized body  but  the  people  of  God,  mem- 
bership in  which  is  mediated  not  by  the  ex- 

*  Oxford  Tracts,  vol.  ii.,  No.  66. 


36  THE    DOCTRINE    OF 


ternal  act  of  baptism  but  by  the  internal 
regeneration  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  bore  its  full 
fruit  in  rectifying  the  doctrine  of  the  appli- 
cation of  redemption.  This  great  truth 
was  taught  alike  by  both  branches  of  Prot- 
estantism, but  it  was  limited  in  its  appli- 
cation in  the  one  line  of  teaching  by  a  very 
high  doctrine  of  the  means  of  grace,  while 
in  the  other  it  became  itself  constitutive  of 
the  doctrine  of  the  means  of  grace.  Not  a 
few  Reformed  theologians,  even  outside  the 
Church  of  England,  no  doubt  also  held  a 
high  doctrine  of  the  means  ;  of  whom  Peter 
Jurieu  may  be  taken  as  a  type.*  But  this 
was  not  characteristic  of  the  Reformed 
churches,  the  distinguishing  doctrine  of 
which  rather  by  suspending  salvation  on 
membership  in  the  invisible  instead  of  in 
the  visible  Church,  transformed  baptism 
from  a  necessity  into  a  duty,  and  left  men 
dependent  for  salvation  on  nothing  but  the 
infinite  love  and  free  grace  of  God.  In  this 
view  the  absolutely  free  and  loving  election 
of  God  alone  is  determinative  of  the  saved  ; 
so  that  how  many  and  who  they  are  is  known 
absolutely  to  God  alone,  and  to  us  only  so  far 
forth  as  it  may  be  inferred  from  the  marks 
and  signs  of  election  revealed  to  us  in  the 

*  See  his  views  quoted  and  discussed  by  Witsius,  Be  Effi- 
cace  et  TMlitale  Bapt.  in  Miscel.  Sacra  (1636),  ii.,  513, 


INFANT    SALVATION.  37 


Word.  Faith  and  its  fruits  are  the  chief 
signs  in  the  case  of  adults,  and  he  that  be- 
lieves may  know  that  he  is  of  the  elect.  In 
the  case  of  infants  dying  in  infancy,  birth 
within  the  bounds  of  the  covenant  is  a  sure 
sigu,  since  the  promise  is  "  unto  us  and  our 
children."  But  present  unbelief  is  not  a 
sure  sign  of  reprobation  in  the  case  of 
adults,  for  who  knows  but  that  unbelief  may 
yet  give  place  to  faith  ?  Nor  in  the  case  of 
infants,  dying  such,  is  birth  outside  the  cov- 
enant a  trustworthy  sign  of  reprobation,  for 
the  election  of  God  is  free.  Accordingly 
there  are  many— adults  and  infants — of 
whose  salvation  we  may  be  sure,  but  of  rep- 
robation we  cannot  be  sure  ;  such  a  judg- 
ment is  necessarily  unsafe  even  as  to  adults 
apparently  living  in  sin,  while  as  to  infants 
who  "  die  and  give  no  sign/'  it  is  presump- 
tuous and  rash  in  the  extreme. 

The  above  is  practically  an  outline  of  the 
teaching  of  Zwingli.  He  himself  worked  it 
out  in  its  logical  completeness,  and  taught  : 
1.  That  all  believers  are  elect  and  hence  are 
saved,  though  we  cannot  know  infallibly 
who  are  true  believers  except  in  our  own 
case.  2.  All  children  of  believers  dying  in 
infancy  are  elect  and  hence  are  saved,  for 
this  rests  on  God's  immutable  promise. 
3.  It  is  probable,  from  the  superabundance 


>-- 


38  THE    DOCTRINE    OF 

of  the  gift  of  grace  over  the  offence,  that 
all  infants  dying  such  are  elect  and  saved  ; 
so  that  death  in  infancy  is  a  sign  of  elec- 
tion ;  and  although  this  must  be  left  with 
God,  it  is  certainly  rash  and  even  impious 
to  affirm  their  damnation.  4.  All  who  are 
saved,  whether  adult  or  infant,  are  saved 
only  by  the  free  grace  of  God's  election  and 
through  the  redemption  of  Christ.* 

The  central  principle  of  Zwiugli's  teaching 
is  not  only  the  common  possession  of  all  Cal- 
vinists,  but  the  essential  postulate  of  their 
system.  They  can  differ  among  themselves 
only  in  their  determination  of  what  the 
signs  of  election  and  reprobation  are,  and  in 
their  interpretation  of  these  signs.  On 
these  grounds  Calvinists  early  divided  into 
five  classes  :  1.  From  the  beginning  a  few 
held  with  Zwingli  that  death  in  infancy  is  a 
sign  of  election,  and  hence  that  all  who  die 
in  infancy  are  the  children  of  God  and  enter 
at  once  into  glory.  After  Zwingli,  Bishop 
Hooper  was  probably  the  firstf  to  embrace 

*  Zwingli's  teaching  may  be  conveniently  worked  out  by  the 
aid  of  August  Baur's  valuable  Zwinglis  Theologie,  especially 
vol.  ii.  (Halle,  1889).  Zwingli's  doctrine  of  original  sin  had 
practically  no  influence  on  this  question. 

t  The  adverb  is  used  advisedly.  Calvin  is  often  held  to 
have  believed  that  all  infants  dying  such  are  saved.  For 
a  careful  statement  of  this  opinion  see  especially  the  full  and 
learned  paper  of  Dr.  Chakles  W.  Shields,  in  The  Presbyte- 
rian and  Reformed  Review  for  October,  1890  (vol  i.,  pp.  634- 
651).     To  us,  however,  Calvin  seems,  while  speaking  with  ad- 


INFANT    SALVATION.  39 

this  view.*  It  has  more  lately  become  the 
ruling  view,  and  we  may  select  Augustus 
Topladyf  and  Robert  S.  Candlish  as  its  types. 
The  latter,  for  example,  writes  :{  "In  many 
ways  I  apprehend  it  may  be  inferred  from 
Scripture  that  all  dying  in  infancy  are  elect, 
and  are,  therefore,  saved.  .  .  .  The 
whole  analogy  of  the  plan  of  saving  mercy 
seems  to  favor  the  same  view,  and  now  it 
may  be  seen,  if  I  am  not  greatly  mistaken, 
to  be  put  beyond  question  by  the  bare  fact 
thatlittle  children  die.  .  .  .  The  death 
of  little  children  must  be  held  to  be  one  of 
the  fruits  of  redemption.  .  .  ."  2.  At 
the  opposite  extreme  a  very  few  held  that 
the  only  sure  sign  of  election  is  faith  with 
its  fruits,  and,  therefore,  we  can  have  no 
real  ground  of  knowledge  concerning  the 
fate  of  any  infant  ;  as,  however,  God  cer- 
tainly has  his  elect  among  them  too,  each 
man  can  cherish  the  hope  that  his  children 

mirable  caution,  to  imply  that  he  believed  some  infants  dying 
such  to  be  lost.  See,  e.g.,  his  comment  on  Rom.  v.  17,  and  his 
treatises  against  Pighius,  Servetus,  and  Castellio.  Dr.  Schaff 
repeatedly  speaks  of  Bullinger  as  agreeing  in  this  point  with 
Zwingli — on  what  grounds  we  know  not  unless  the  note  in 
Creeds  of  Christendom,  i.,  642,  note  3,  is  intended  to  direct  us  to 
the  passages  quoted  by  Laurence  as  such.  But  these  passages 
do  not  seem  to  support  that  opinion  ;  and  in  a  diligent  search  in 
Bullinger's  works  we  find  nothing  to  favor  it  and  much  to  nega- 
tive it. 

*  See  reference  ante,  p.  129. 

t  The  Works  of,  etc.,  new  ed.,  1837,  p.  645. 

%  The  Atonement,  etc.,  1861,  pp.  183,  184. 


40  THE    DOCTRINE    OF 

are  of  the  elect.     Peter  Martyr  approaches 
this  sadly  agnostic  position  (which  was  after- 
ward condemned  by  the  Synod  of  Dort), 
writing  :  "  Neither  am  I  to  be  thought  to 
promise  salvation  to  all  the  children  of  the 
faithful  which  depart  without  the  sacrament, 
for  if  I  should  do  so  I  might  be  counted 
rash  ;  I   leave   them   to  be  judged  by   the 
mercy  of  God,   seeing  I  have  no  certainty 
concerning  the  secret  election  and  predes- 
tination ;  but  I  only  assert  that  those  are 
truly  saved  to  whom  the  divine  election  ex- 
tends, although  baptism  does  not  intervene. 
Just  so,  I  hope  well   concerning  infants  of 
this   kind,  because  I  see  them  born  from 
faithful  parents  ;  and  this  thing  has  prom- 
ises that  are  uncommon  ;  and  although  they 
may  not  be  general,  quoad  ovmes,  yet  when 
I  see  nothing  to  the  contrary  it  is  right  to 
hope  well  concerning  the  salvation  of  such 
infants."*     The  great  body  of  Calvinists, 
however,  previous  to  the  present  century, 
took  their  position  between  these  extremes. 
3.  Many   held  that  faith  and   the  promise 
are  sure  signs  of  election,  and  accordingly 
all  believers  and  their  children  are  certainly 
saved  ;  but  that  the  luck  of  faith  and  the 
promise  is  an  equally  sure  sign  of  reproba- 
tion, so  that  all  the  children  of  unbelievers, 

*  Loci  Communes,  i.,  class  4,  cap  5,  §  1G  (compare  i\\,  100). 


INFANT    SALVATION.  41 

dying  such,  are  equally  certaiuly  lost.  The 
younger  Spanheim,  for  example,  writes  : 
"  Confessedly,  therefore,  original  sin  is  a 
most  just  cause  of  positive  reprobation. 
Hence  no  one  fails  to  see  what  we  should 
think  concerning  the  children  of  pagans 
dying  in  their  childhood  ;  for  unless  we 
acknowledge  salvation  outside  of  God's  cov- 
enant and  Church  (like  the  Pelagians  of 
old,  and  with  them  Tertullian,  Epiphanius, 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  of  the  ancients,  and 
of  the  moderns,  Andradius,  Ludovicus 
Vives,  Erasmus,  and  not  a  few  others, 
against  the  whole  Bible),  and  suppose  that 
all  the  children  of  the  heathen,  dying  in  in- 
fancy, are  saved,  and  that  it  would  be  a  great 
blessing  to  them  if  they  should  be  smoth- 
ered by  the  midwives  or  strangled  in  the 
cradle,  we  should  humbly  believe  that  they 
are  justly  reprobated  by  God  on  account  of 
the  corruption  (labes)  and  guilt  (renins) 
derived  to  them  by  natural  propagation. 
Hence,  too,  Paul  testifies  (Rom.  v.  14)  that 
death  has  passed  upon  them  which  have  not 
sinned  after  the  similitude  of  Adam's  trans- 
gression, and  distinguishes  and  separates 
(1  Cor.  vii.  14)  the  children  of  the  cove- 
nanted as  holy  from  the  impure  children  of 
unbelievers."  *     4.  More  held  that  faith  and 


*  Opera,  iii.,  cols.  1173-74,  §  22. 


42  THE    DOCTRINE   OF 

the  promise  are  certain  signs  01  election,  so 
that  the  salvation  of  believers'  children  is 
certain,  while  the  lack  of  the  promise  only 
leaves  us  in  ignorance  of  God's  purpose  ; 
nevertheless  that  there  is  good  ground  for 
asserting  that  both  election  and  reprobation 
have  place  in  this  unknown  sphere.  Ac- 
cordingly they  held  that  all  the  infants  of 
believers,  dying  such,  are  saved,  but  that 
some  of  the  infants  of  unbelievers,  dying 
such,  are  lost.  Probably  no  higher  expres- 
sion of  this  general  view  can  be  found  than 
John  Owen's.  He  argues  that  there  are  two 
ways  in  which  God  saves  infants  :  "  (1)  by 
interesting  them  in  the  covenant,  if  their 
immediate  or  remote  parents  have  been  be- 
lievers. He  is  a  God  of  them  and  of  their 
seed,  extending  his  mercy  to  a  thousand 
generations  of  them  that  fear  him  ;*  (2)  by 
his  grace  of  election  which  is  most  free  and 
not  tied  to  any  conditions,  by  which  I  make 
no  doubt  but  God  taketh  many  unto  him  in 
Christ  whose  parents  never  knew  or  had 
been  despisers  of  the  Gospel."  \  5.  Most 
Calvinists  of  the  past,  however,  have  simply 
held  that  faith  and  the  promise  are  marks 
by  which  we  may  know  assuredly  that  all 

*  It  is,  perhaps,  worth  noting  that  this  is  the  general  Calvin- 
istic  view  of  what  "children  of  believers1'  means.  Compare 
Calvin,  Tracts,  vol.  Hi.,  p.  351. 

t  Works,  x.,  81  ;  compare  v.,  137. 


INFANT    SALVATION.  43 

those  who  believe  and  their  children,  dying 
such,  are  elect  and  saved,  while  the  absence 
of  sure  marks  of  either  election  or  reproba- 
tion in  infants,  dying  such  outside  the  cov- 
enant, leaves  us  without  ground  for  inference 
concerning  them,  and  they  must  be  left  to 
the  judgment  of  God,  which,  however  hid- 
den from  us,  is  assuredly  just  and  holy  and 
good.  This  agnostic  view  of  the  fate  of  un- 
covenanted  infants  has  been  held,  of  course, 
in  conjunction  with  every  degree  of  hope  or 
the  lack  of  hope  concerning  them,  and  thus 
in  the  hands  of  the  several  theologians  it 
approaches  each  of  the  other  views,  except, 
of  course,  the  second,  which  separates  itself 
from  the  general  Calvinistic  attitude  by 
allowing  a  place  for  reprobation  even  among 
believers'  infants,  dying  such.  Petrus  de 
Witte  may  stand  for  one  example.  He 
says  :  "We  must  adore  God's  judgments 
and  not  curiously  inquire  into  them.  Of 
the  children  of  believers  it  is  not  to  be  doubt- 
ed but  that  they  shall  be  saved,  inasmuch  as 
they  belong  unto  the  covenant.  But  be- 
cause we  have  no  promise  of  the  children  of 
unbelievers  we  leave  them  to  the  judgment 
of  God."  *  Matthew  Henry  f  and  our  own 
Jonathan  Dickinson  J  may  also  stand  as 
types.     It  is  this  cautious,   agnostic  view 

*  Catechism,  q.  37.         t  Works,  ii.,  940.         %  Sermons,  205. 


44  THE    DOCTRINE    OF 


which  has  the  best  historical  right  to  be 
called  the  general  Calvinistic  one.  Van 
Maastricht  correctly  says  that  while  the  Re- 
formed hold  that  infants  are  liable  to  repro- 
bation, yet  "  concerning  believers'  infants 
.  .  .  they  judge  better  things.  But 
unbelievers7  infants,  because  the  Scriptures 
determine  nothing  clearly  on  the  subject, 
they  judge  should  be  left  to  the  divine  dis- 
cretion/' * 

The  Reformed  Confessions  with  character- 
istic caution  refrain  from  all  definition  of 
the  negative  side  of  the  salvation  of  infants, 
dying  such,  and  thus  confine  themselves  to 
emphasizing  the  gracious  doctrine  common 
to  the  whole  body  of  Reformed  thought. 
The  fundamental  Reformed  doctrine  of  the 
Church  is  nowhere  more  beautifully  stated 
than  in  the  sixteenth  article  of  the  Old 
Scotch  Confession,  while  the  polemical  ap- 
pendix of  1580,  in  its  protest  against  the 
errors  of  "  antichrist,"  specifically  mentions 
"  his  era  ell  judgement  againis  infants  de- 
parting Avithout  the  sacrament  :  his  absolute 
necessitie  of  baptisme. ' '  No  synod  probably 
ever  met  which  labored  under  greater 
temptation  to  declare  that  some  infants, 
dying  in  infancy,  are  reprobate,  than  the 
Synod  of  Dort.     Possibly  nearly  every  mem- 

*  Theoretico-Pract.  Theol.  (1724),  p.  308. 


INFANT    SALVATION.  45 

ber  of  it  held  as  his  private  opinion  that 
there  are  such  infants  ;  and  the  certainly- 
very  shrewd  but  scarcely  sincere  methods 
of  the  Remonstrants  in  shifting  the  form 
in  which  this  question  came  before  the 
synod  were  very  irritating.  But  the  fa- 
thers of  Dort,  with  truly  Reformed  loyal- 
ty to  the  positive  declarations  of  Scrip- 
ture, confined  themselves  to  a  clear  testi- 
mony to  the  positive  doctrine  of  infant  sal- 
vation and  a  repudiation  of  the  calumnies 
of  the  Remonstrants,  without  a  word  of  neg- 
ative inference.  "  Since  we  are  to  judge 
of  the  will  of  God  from  his  Word/'  they  say, 
"  which  testifies  that  the  children  of  believ- 
ers are  holy,  not  by  nature,  but  in  virtue  of 
the  covenant  of  grace  in  which  they  to- 
gether with  their  parents  are  comprehended, 
godly  parents  have  no  reason  to  doubt  of  the 
election  and  salvation  of  their  children 
whom  it  pleaseth  God  to  call  out  of  this  life 
in  their  infancy"  (Art.  XVII. ).  Accord- 
ingly they  repel  in  the  Conclusion  the 
calumny  that  the  Reformed  teach  '  that 
many  children  of  the  faithful  are  torn  guilt- 
less from  their  mothers'  breasts  and  tyran- 
nically plunged  into  hell."  *     It  is  easy  to 

*  The  language  here  used  has  a  not  uninteresting  history. 
It  is  Calvin's  challenge  to  Castellio  :  "  Put  forth  now  thy  viru- 
lence against  God,  who  hurls  innocent  babes  torn  from  their 
mothers'  breasts  into  eternal  death"  (Be  Occulta  Bei  Providen- 


46  THE    DOCTRINE    OF 

say  that  nothing  is  here  said  of  the  children 
of  any  but  the  "  godly"  and  of  the  "  faith- 
ful ;"  this  is  true  ;  and  therefore  it  is  not 
implied  (as  is  so  often  thoughtlessly  asserted) 
that  the  contrary  of  what  is  here  asserted 
is  true  of  the  children  of  the  ungodly  ;  but 
nothing  is  taught  of  them  at  all.  It  is  more 
to  the  purpose  to  observe  that  it  is  asserted 
that  the  children  of  believers,  dying  such,  are 
saved ;  and  that  this  assertion  is  an  ines- 
timable advance  on  that  of  the  Council  of 
Trent  and  that  of  the  Augsburg  Confession 
that  baptism  is  necessary  to  salvation.  It  is 
the  confessional  doctrine  of  the  Keformed 
churches  and  of  the  Reformed  churches 
alone,  that  all  believers'  infants,  dying  in  in- 
fancy, are  saved. 

What  has  been  said  of  the  Synod  of 
Dort  may  be  repeated  of  the  Westmin- 
ster Assembly.  The  Westminster  divines 
were  generally  at  one  iu  the  matter  of 
infant  salvation  with  the  doctors  of  Dort, 


tia,  in  Opp.  ed.,  Amst,  viii.,  pp.  644-45).  The  underlying  con- 
ception that  God  condemns  infants  to  eternal  death  seems  to  be 
Calvin's  ;  but  the  mode  of  expression  is  Calvin's  reducfio  ad 
absurdum  (or  rather  ad  blasphemiam)  of  Castellio's  opinions. 
Nevertheless  the  Remonstrants  allowed  themselves  in  their 
polemic  zeal  to  apply  the  whole  sentiment  to  the  orthodox, 
and  that,  even  in  a  still  more  sharpened  form — viz.,  with 
reference  to  believers'1  children.  This  very  gross  calumny  the 
Synod  repels.  Its  deliverance  is  subjected  to  a  very  sharp 
and  not  very  candid  criticism  by  Episcopius  {Operal.,  i.,  p. 
176,  and  specially  II.,  p.  28). 


INFANT    SALVATION.  47 

but,  like  them,  they  retrained  from  any  de- 
liverance as  to  its  negative  side.  That  death 
in  infancy  does  not  prejudice  the  salvation 
of  God's  elect  they  asserted  in  the  chapter 
of  their  Confession  which  treats  of  the  ap- 
plication of  Christ's  redemption  to  his 
people  :  "  All  those  whom  God  hath  pre- 
destined unto  life,  and  those  only,  he  is 
pleased,  in  his  appointed  and  accepted  time, 
effectually  to  call,  by  his  word  and  Spirit, 
.  .  .  so  as  they  come  most  freely,  being 
made  willing  by  his  grace.  .  .  .  Elect 
infants  dying  in  infancy  are  regenerated  and 
saved  by  Christ,  through  the  Spirit  who 
worketh  when,  and  where,  and  how  he 
pleaseth."  *  With  this  declaration  of  their 
faith  that  such  of  God's  elect  as  die  in  in- 
fancy are  saved  by  his  own  mysterious  work- 
ing in  their  hearts,  although  incapable  of 
the   response   of  faith,  they  were  content. 

;  h'tstminster  Confessionof  Faith,~K..,  i.  and  iii.  The  opinion 
that  a  body  of  non-elect  infants  dying  in  infancy  and  not  saved  is 
implied  in  this  passage,  although  often  controversially  asserted, 
is  not  only  a  wholly  unreasonable  opinion  exegetically,  but  is  ab- 
solutely negatived  by  the  history  of  the  formation  of  this  clause 
in  the  Assembly  as  recorded  in  the  Minutes,  and  has  never  found 
favor  among  the  expositors  of  the  Confession.  David  Dick- 
son's (1684)  treatment  of  the  section  shows  that  he  understands 
it  to  be  directed  against  the  Anabaptists  ;  and  all  careful  stu- 
dents of  the  Confession  understand  it  as  above,  including  Shaw, 
Hodge,  Macpherson  and  Mitchell.  The  same  is  true  of  all 
schools  of  adherents  to  the  Confession.  See,  e.g.,  Lyman  Beech- 
er  (SjArit  of  the  Pilgrims,  i.,  pp.  49,  81)  ;  cf.  also  Philip 
Schapf  {Creeds  of  Christendom,  i.,  795). 


48  THE   DOCTRINE   OF 

Whether  these  elect  comprehend  all  infants, 
dying  such,  or  some  only — whether  there  is 
such  a  class  as  non-elect  infants,  dying  in 
infancy,  their  words  neither  say  nor  sug- 
gest. No  Eeformed  confession  enters  into 
this  question  ;  no  word  is  said  by  any  one  of 
them  which  either  asserts  or  implies  either 
that  some  infants  are  reprobated  or  that  all 
are  saved.  What  has  been  held  in  common 
by  the  whole  body  of  Reformed  theologians 
on  this  subject  is  asserted  in  these  confes- 
sions ;  of  what  has  been  disputed  among 
them  the  confessions  are  silent.  And 
silence  is  as  favorable  to  one  type  as  to  an- 
other. 

Although  the  cautious  agnostic  position 
as  to  the  fate  of  uncovenanted  infants  dying 
in  infancy  may  fairly  claim  to  be  the  his- 
torical Calvinistic  view,  it  is  perfectly  obvi- 
ous that  it  is  not  per  se  any  more  Calvinistic 
than  any  of  the  others.  The  adherents  of 
all  the  types  enumerated  above  are  clearly 
within  the  limits  of  the  system,  and  hold 
with  the  same  firmness  to  the  fundamental 
position  that  salvation  is  suspended  on  no 
earthly  cause,  but  ultimately  rests  on 
God's  electing  grace  alone,  while  our  knowl- 
edge of  who  are  saved  depends  on  our  view 
of  what  are  the  signs  of  election  and  of  the 
clearness  with   which   they   may  be  inter- 


INFANT    SALVATION.  49 


preted.     As  these  several  types  diif  er  only  in 
the  replies  they  offer  to  the  subordinate  ques- 
tion, there  is  no  "  revolution"  involved  in 
passing  from  one  to  the  other  ;  and  as  in  the 
lapse  of   time   the   balance   between   them 
swings  this  way  or  that,  it  can  only  be  truly 
said  that  there  is  advance  or  retrogression, 
not  in  fundamental  conception,  but  in  the 
clearness  with  which  details  are  read  and 
with  which  the  outline  of  the  doctrine  is 
filled  up.    In  the  course  of  time  the  agnostic 
view  of  the  fate  of  uncovenanted  infants, 
dying  such,  has  given  place  to  an  ever-grow- 
ing universality  of  conviction  that  these  in- 
fants too  are  included  in   the   election  of 
grace  ;  so  that  to  day  few  Calvinists  can  be 
found  who  do  not  hold  with  Toplady,  and 
Doddridge,   and  Thomas  Scott,  and  John 
Newton,  and  James  P.  Wilson,  and  Nathan 
L.  Rice,  and  Robert  J.  Breckinridge,  and 
Robert  S.  Candlish,  and  Charles  Hodge,  and 
the   whole  body  of  those   of   recent  years 
whom  the  Calvinistic  churches  delight  to 
honor,  that  all  who  die  in  infancy  are  the 
children  of  God  and  enter  at  once  into  his 
glory — not  because  original  sin  alone  is  not 
deserving  of  eternal  punishment  (for  all  are 
born  children  of  wrath),  nor  because  they 
are  less  guilty  than  others  (for  relative  in- 
nocence would  merit  only  relatively  light 


50  THE    DOCTRINE    OF 


punishment,  not  freedom  from  all  punish- 
ment), nor  because  they  die  in  infancy  (for 
that  they  die  in  infancy  is  not  the  cause  but 
the  effect  of  God's  mercy  toward  them),  but 
simply  because  God  in  his  infinite  love  has 
chosen  them  in  Christ,  before  the  founda- 
tion of  the  world,  by  a  loving  foreordination 
of  them  unto  adoption  as  sons  in  Jesus 
Christ.  Thus,  as  they  hold,  the  Eeformed 
theology  has  followed  the  light  of  the  Word 
until  its  brightness  has  illuminated  all  its 
corners,  and  the  darkness  has  fled  away. 

7.  The  most  serious  peril  which  the 
orderly  development  of  the  Christian  doc- 
trine of  the  salvation  of  infants  has  had  to 
encounter,  as  men  strove,  age  after  age, 
more  purely  and  thoroughly  to  apprehend 
it,  has  arisen  from  the  intrusion  into  Chris- 
tian thought  of  what  we  may,  without  lack 
of  charity,  call  the  unchristian  conception 
of  man's  natural  innocence.  For  the  task 
which  was  set  to  Christian  thinking  was  to 
obtain  a  clear  understanding  of  God's  re- 
vealed purpose  of  mercy  to  the  infants  of  a 
guilty  and  wrath-deserving  race.  And  the 
Pelagianizing  conception  of  the  innocence 
of  human  infancy,  in  however  subtle  a  form 
presented,  put  the  solution  of  the  problem 
in  jeopardy  by  suggesting  that  it  needed  no 
solution.     We  have  seen  how  some  Greek 


INFANT    SALVATION.  51 


Fathers  cut  the  knot  with  the  facile  formula 
that  infantile  innocence,  while  not  deserving 
of  supernatural  reward,  was  yet  in  no  dan- 
ger of  being  adjudged  to  punishment.  We 
have  seen  how  in  the  more  active  hands  of 
Pelagius  and  his  companions,  as  part  of  a 
great  unchristian  scheme,  it  menaced  Chris- 
tianity itself,  and  was  repelled  only  by  the 
vigor  and  greatness  of  an  Augustine.  We 
have  seen  how  the  same  conception,  creep- 
ing gradually  into  the  Latin  Church  in  the 
milder  form  of  semi-Pelagianism,  lulled  her 
heart  to  sleep  with  suggestions  of  less  and 
less  ill- desert  for  original  sin,  until  she  neg- 
lected the  problem  of  infant  salvation 
altogether  and  comforted  herself  with  a  con- 
stantly attenuating  doctrine  of  infant  pun- 
ishment. If  infants  are  so  well  off  without 
Christ,  there  is  little  impulse  to  consider 
whether  they  may  not  be  in  Christ. 

The  Eeformed  churches  could  not  hope 
to  work  out  the  problem  free  from  menace 
from  the  perennial  enemy.  The  crisis  came 
in  the  form  of  the  Remonstrant  controversy. 
The  anthropology  of  the  Remonstrants  was 
distinctly  semi- Pelagian,  and  on  that  basis 
no  solid  advance  was  possible.  Nor  was  the 
matter  helped  by  their  postulation  of  a  uni- 
versal atonement  which  lost  in  intention  as 
much  as  it  gained  in  extension.     Infants 


52  THE    DOCTRINE    OF 


may  have  very  little  to  be  saved  from,  but 
their  salvation  from  even  it  cannot  be 
wrought  by  an  atonement  which  only  pur- 
chases for  them  the  opportunity  for  salva- 
tion— an  opportunity  of  which  they  cannot 
avail  themselves,  however  much  the  natural 
power  of  free  choice  is  uninjured  by  the  fall, 
for  the  simple  reason  that  they  die  infants  ; 
while  God  cannot  be  held  to  make  them, 
without  their  free  choice,  partakers  of  this 
atonement  without  an  admission  of  that 
sovereign  discrimination  among  men  which 
it  was  the  very  object  of  the  whole  Remon- 
strant theory  to  exclude.  It  is  not  strange 
that  the  Remonstrants  looked  with  some 
favor  on  the  Romish  theory  of  pcena  damni. 
Though  the  doctrine  of  the  salvation  of  all 
infants  dying  in  infancy  became  one  of  their 
characteristic  tenets,  it  had  no  logical  basis 
in  their  scheme  of  faith,  and  their  proclama- 
tion of  it  could  have  no  direct  eifect  in 
working  out  the  problem.  Indirectly  it 
had  a  twofold  effect.  On  the  one  hand,  it 
retarded  the  true  course  of  the  development 
of  doctrine,  by  leading  those  who  held  fast 
to  biblical  teaching  on  original  sin  and  par- 
ticular election,  to  oppose  the  doctrine  of  the 
salvation  of  all  dying  in  infancy,  as  if  it  were 
necessarily  inconsistent  with  these  teach- 
ings.     Probably  Calvinists  were  never  so 


INFANT    SALVATION.  53 


united  in  affirming  that  some  infants,  dying 
such,  are  reprobated,  as  in  the  height  of  the 
Remonstrant  controversy.       On  the  other 
hand,  so  far  as  the  doctrine  of  the  salvation 
of  all  infants,  dying  such,  was  accepted  by 
the  anti-Remonstrants,  it  tended  to  bring  in 
with  it,  in  more  or  less  measure,  the  other 
tenets  with  which  it  was  associated  in  their 
teaching,  and  thus  to  lead  men  away  from 
the  direct  path  along  which  alone  the  solu- 
tion was  to  be  found.     Wesleyan  Arminian- 
ism  brought  only  an  amelioration,   not   a 
thoroughgoing   correction  of   the  faults  of 
Remonstrantism.      The    theoretical   postu- 
lation  of  original  sin  and  natural  inability, 
corrected    by    the   gift   to   all   men    of    a 
gracious    ability  on  the  basis   of    universal 
atonement  in  Christ,  was  a  great  advance. 
But  it  left  the  salvation  of  infants  dying 
in    infancy    logically    as   unaccounted    for 
as  original  Remonstrantism.     Ex  liypothesi, 
the  universal  atonement  could  bring  to  these 
infants  only  what  it  brought  to  all  others, 
and  this  was  something  short  of  salvation — 
viz.,  an  ability  to  improve  the  grace  given 
alike  to  all.     But  infants,  dying  such,  can- 
not improve  grace ;  and  therefore,  it  would 
seem,  cannot  be  saved,  unless  we  suppose  a 
special  gift  to  them  over  and  above  what  is 
given  to  other  men — a  supposition  subversive 


54  THE    DOCTRINE    OF 


at  once  of  the  whole  Arminian  contention. 
The  assertion  of  the  salvation  of  all  infants 
dying  in  infancy,  although  a  specially  dear 
tenet  of  Wesleyau  Arminianism,  remains 
therefore,  as  with  the  earlier  Remonstrants, 
unconformable  to  the  system.  The  Arminian 
difficulty,  indeed,  lies  one  step  further  back  ; 
it  does  not  make  clear  how  any  infant  dying 
in  infancy  is  to  be  saved.* 

The  truth  seems  to  be  that  there  is  but 
one  logical  outlet  for  any  system  of  doctrine 
which  suspends  the  determination  of  who  are 
to  be  saved  upon  any  action  of  man's  own  will, 
whether  in  the  use  of  gracious  or  natural 
ability  (that  is,  of  course,  if  it  is  unwilling 
to  declare  infants,  dying  such,  incapable  of 
salvation);  and  that  lies  in  the  extension  of 
"  the  day  of  grace"  for  such  into  the  other 
world.  Otherwise,  there  will  inevitably  be 
brought  in  covertly,  in  the  salvation  of  in- 
fants, that  very  sovereignty  of  God,  "  irre- 


*  The  prevailing  view  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  is 
probably  that  infants  are  all  born  justified.  The  difficulties  of 
this  view  are  hinted  by  a  not  unfriendly  hand  in  The  Cumber- 
land Presbyterian  Review  for  January,  18!)0,  p.  113.  The  best 
that  can  be  said  toward  placing  the  dying  infant  "  in  the  same 
essential  gracious  position  as  that  into  which  the  justified 
and  regenerate  adult  is  brought  by  voluntary  faith,11  may 
be  read  from  Dr.  D.  D.  Whedon's  pen  in  The  Methodist 
Quarterly  Review  for  1883,  p.  757.  It  is  inconsequent  ;  and 
its  consequences  are  portentous  to  Arminianism  —  or  shall 
we  say  that  God  does  not  determine  who  are  to  die  in  in- 
fancy ? 


INFANT    SALVATION.  55 


sistible"  grace  and  passive  receptivity,  to  deny 
which  is  the  whole  raison  d'etre  of  these 
schemes.     There  are  indications  that  this  is 
being  increasingly  felt  among  those  who  are 
most  concerned  ;  we  have  noted  it  most  re- 
cently among    the    Cumberland  Presbyte- 
rians,* who,  perhaps  alone  of  Christian  de- 
nominations, have  embodied  in  their  confes- 
sion their  conviction  that  all  infants,  dying 
such,  are  saved.     The  theory  of  a  probation 
in  the  other  world  for  such  as  have  had  in 
this   no  such   probation  as  to  secure  from 
them  a  decisive  choice  has  come  to  us  from 
Germany,    and   bears   accordingly   a    later 
Lutheran  coloring.     Its  roots  are,  however, 
planted  in  the  earliest  Lutheran  thinking,  f 
and  are  equally  visible  in  the  writings  of  the 
early  Remonstrants  ;  its  seeds  are  present,  in 
fact,   wherever  man's  salvation   is  causally 
suspended  on  any  act  of  his  own.     But  the 
outcome  offered  by  it  certainly  affords  no 
good  reason  for  affirming  that  all  infants, 
dying  such,  are  saved.     It  is  not  uncommon, 
indeed,  for  the  advocates  of  this  theory  to 
suppose  the  present  life  to  be  a  more  favor- 
able opportunity  for  moral  renewal  in  Christ 


*  Cumberland  Presbyterian  Review,  July,  1890,  p.  369  :  cf. 
January,  1890,  p.  113. 

t  Cf .  e.g.,  Andre  -e,  Actis  Oolloq.  Montisbelligart,  p.  447, 
448  ;  and  note  Beza*s  crushing  reply. 


56  THE    DOCTRINE    OF 


than  the  next.*  Some,  no  doubt,  think 
otherwise.  Bat  in  either  event  what  can  as- 
sure us  that  all  will  be  so  reneAved  ?  We  are 
ready  to  accept  the  subtle  argument  in  Dr. 
Kedney's  valuable  work,  Christian  Doctrine 
Harmonized, \  as  the  best  that  can  be  said  in 
the  premises  ;  for  although  Dr.  Kedney  de- 
nies the  theory  of  "future  probation"  in 
general,  he  shares  the  general  "  ethical"  view 
on  which  it  is  founded,  and  projects  the  sal- 
vation of  infants  dying  in  infancy  into  the 
next  world  on  the  express  ground  that  they 
are  incapable  of  choice  here.  He  assures  us 
that  they  will  surely  welcome  the  knowl- 
edge of  God's  love  in  Christ  there.  But  we 
miss  the  grounds  of  assurance,  on  the  funda- 
mental postulates  of  the  scheme.  If  the 
choice  of  these  infants,  while  it  remains  free, 
can  be  made  thus  certain  there,  why  not  the 
same  for  all  men  here  f  And  if  their  choice 
is  thus  made  certain,  is  their  destiny  deter- 
mined by  their  choice,  or  by  God  who  makes 
that  choice  certain  ?  Assuredly  no  thor- 
oughfare is  open  along  this  path  for  a  con- 
sistent doctrine  of  the  salvation  of  all  those 
that  die  in  infancy.  But  this  seems  the 
only  pathway  that  is  consistently  open  to 
those,  of  whatever  name,  who  make  man's 

*  Cf.  Progressive  Orthodoxy,  p.  76. 
t  Vol.  ii.,  pp.  91  sq. 


INFANT    SALVATION.  57 

own  undetermined  act  the  determining  fac- 
tor in  his  salvation.* 

8.  The  drifts  of  doctrine  which  have  come 
before  us  in  this  rapid  sketch  may  be  reduced 
to  three  generic  views.  1.  There  is  what 
may  be  called  the  ecclesiastical  doctrine,  ac- 
cording  to  which  the  Church,  in  the  sense 
of  an  outwardly  organized  body,  is  set  as  the 
sole  fountain  of  salvation  in  the  midst  of  a 
lost  world  ;  the  Spirit  of  God  and  eternal 
life  are  its  peculiar  endowments,  of  which 
none  can  partake  save  through  communion 
with  it.  Accordingly  to  all  those  departing 
this  life  in  infancy,  baptism,  the  gateway  to 
the  Church,  is  the  condition  of  salvation. 
2.  There  is  Avhat  may  be  called  the  gracious 
doctrine,  according  to  which  the  visible 
Church  is  not  set  in  the  world  to  determine 
by  the  gift  of  its  ordinances  who  are  to  be 
saved,  but  as  the  harbor  of  refuge  for  the 
saints,  to  gather  into  its  bosom  those  whom 
God  himself  in  his  infinite  love  has  selected 
in  Christ  Jesus  before  the  foundation  of  the 
world  in  whom  to  show  the  wonders  of  his 
grace.   Men  accordingly   are  not  saved  be- 

*  The  Rev.  D.  Fisk  Harris,  himself  a  Congregational 
minister  (Calvinism  Contrary  to  God's  Word  and  Man's  Mor- 
al Nature,  p.  107),  tells  us  that  a  view  not  essentially  differing 
from  Dr  Kedney's  "  seems  to  be  the  prevailing  view  of  Congre- 
gationalists.11  This  he  states  thus  :  "All  infants  become  mor- 
al agents  after  death.  Exercising  a  holy  choice,  they  'are 
saved  on  the  ground  of  the  atonement  and  by  regeneration.'  " 


58  THE    DOCTRINE    OF 

cause  they  are  baptized,  but  they  are  bap- 
tized because  they  are  saved,  and  the 
failure  of  the  ordinance  does  not  argue 
the  failure  of  the  grace.  Accordingly  to 
all  those  departing  this  life  in  infancy, 
inclusion  in  God's  saving  purpose  alone 
is  the  condition  of  salvation  ;  we  may  be 
able  to  infer  this  purpose  from  manifest 
signs,  or  we  may  not  be  able  to  infer  it, 
but  in  any  case  it  cannot  fail.  3.  There  is 
what  may  be  called  the  humanitarian  doc- 
trine, according  to  which  the  determining 
cause  of  man's  salvation  is  his  own  free 
choice,  under  whatever  variety  of  theories 
as  to  the  source  of  his  power  to  exercise  this 
choice,  or  the  manner  in  which  it  is  exercis- 
ed. Accordingly  whether  one  is  saved  or  not 
is  dependent  not  on  baptism  or  on  inclusion 
in  God's  hidden  purpose,  but  on  the  decisive 
activity  of  the  soul  itself. 

The  first  of  these  doctrines  is  character- 
istic of  the  earlv,  the  mediaeval,  and  the 
Koman  churches,  not  without  echoes  in  those 
sections  of  Protestantism  which  love  to  think 
of  themselves  as  "  more  historical"  or  less 
radically  reformed  than  the  rest.  The  second 
is  the  doctrine  of  the  Reformed  churches. 
These  two  are  not  opposed  to  one  another 
in  their  most  fundamental  conception,  but 
are  related  rather  as  an  earlier  misapprehen- 


INFANT    SALVATION.  59 


si  on  and  a  later  correction  of  the  same  basal 
doctrine.     The  phrase  extra  ecclesiam  nulla 
sal  us  is  the  common  property  of  both  ;  they 
differ  only   in  their   understanding  of  the 
*  *'  ecclesia, "  whether  of   the  visible  or  in- 
visible  church.      The   third     doctrine,    on 
the  other  hand,  has  cropped  out  ever  and 
again  in  every  age  of  the  Church,  has  dom- 
inated whole  sections  of  it  and  whole  ages, 
but  has  never,  in  its  purity,  found  expression 
in  any  great  historic  confession  or  exclusively 
characterized  any  age.     It  is,  in  fact,  not  a 
section  of  Church  doctrine  at  all,  but  an  in- 
trusion into  Christian  thought  from  with- 
out.    In  its  purity  it  has  always  and  in  all 
communions  been  accounted    heresy  ;   and 
only  as  it  has  been  more  or  less  modified  and 
concealed  among  distinctively  Christian  ad- 
juncts has  it  ever  made  a  position  for  itself 
in  the  Church.     Its  fundamental  conception 
is  the  antipodes  of  that  of  the  other  doc- 
trines. 

The  first  step  in  the  development  of  the 
doctrine  of  infant  salvation  was  taken  when 
the  Church  laid  the  foundation  which  from 
the  beginning  has  stood  firm,  Infants  too  are 
lost  members  of  a  lost  race,  and  only  those 
savingly  united  to  Christ  are  saved.  In  its 
definition  of  what  infants  are  thus  savingly 
united  to  Christ  the  early  Church   missed 


(>0  THE    DOCTRINE    OF 


the  path.  All  that  are  brought  to  him  in 
baptism,  was  its  answer.  Long  ages  passed 
before  the  second  step  was  taken  in  the  cor- 
rect definition.  The  way  was  prepared  in- 
deed by  Augustine's  doctrine  of  grace,  by 
which  salvation  was  made  dependent  on  the 
dealings  of  God  with  the  individual  heart. 
But  his  eyes  were  h olden  that  he  should 
not  see  it.  It  was  reserved  to  Zwingli  to 
proclaim  it  clearly,  All  the  elect  children  of 
God,  ivho  are  regenerated  by  the  Spirit  who 
worheth  when,  and  where,  and  how  he  pleas- 
eth.  The  sole  question  that  remains  is, 
Who  of  those  that  die  in  infancy  are  the 
elect  children  of  God  ?  Tentative  answers 
were  given.  The  children  of  God's  people, 
said  some.  The  children  of  God's  people, 
with  such  others  as  his  love  has  set  upon  to 
call,  said  others.  All  those  that  die  in  in- 
fancy said  others  still  ;  and  to  this  reply  Re- 
formed thinking  and  not  Reformed  thinking 
only,  but  in  one  way  or  another,  logically 
or  illogically,  the  thinking  of  the  Christian 
world  has  been  converging.  Is  it  the  Scrip- 
tural answer  ?  It  is  as  legitimate  and  as 
logical  an  answer  as  any,  on  Reformed  postu- 
lates. It  is  legitimate  on  no  other  postu- 
lates. If  it  be  really  conformable  to  the 
Word  of  God  it  will  stand  ;  and  the  third 
step  in  the  development  of  the  doctrine  of 


INFANT    SALVATION.  61 

infant  salvation  is  already  taken.  .But  if  it 
stand,  it  can  stand  on  no  other  theological 
basis  than  the  Reformed.  If  all  infants 
dying  in  infancy  are  saved,  it  is  certain  that 
they  are  not  saved  by  or  through  the 
ordinances  of  the  visible  Church  (for  they 
have  not  received  them),  nor  through  their 
own  improvement  of  a  grace  common  to  all 
men  (for  they  are  incapable  of  activity)  ;  it 
can  only  be  through  the  almighty  operation 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  who  worketh  when  and 
where  and  how  he  pleaseth,  through  whose 
ineffable  grace  the  Father  gathers  these  lit- 
tle ones  to  the  home  he  has  prepared  for 
them. 


Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  01094  4835 


KB  I 


DATE  DUE                      J 

MA**^"91 

-4^«i**^ 

? 

'■ '  ■"     ~  ■  ■ 

DEMCO  38-297 

